The Archangel Effect Book one: Stargates and Veritechs'
by Robotech1984
Summary: The ESMF Battlefortress Archangel is transported to the stargate universe following a battle to prevent the destruction of the homeworld of the Hansa Imperial star empire, Lantea, from the hands of the Prometheans, but this is only the start of a journey that will make their battle against the Prometheans seam like a walk in the park at the beginning of their nightmarish journey as
1. Chapter 1: Over the Cliff

**Chapter 01: Over the Cliff.**

_Combat Log Date 56462, admiral J G Cutter recording._

_It would appear that the deep space monitoring fleet was right for a change, and after confirming the data with both the Hansa Imperial Star Empire and the Zodiac republic, we have detected multiple hyperspace tracks incoming._

_Macross Command is unsure as to the exact number and type of ships, but given that they are coming in from the Delta quadrant, and the location of the Promethean hyperspace catapult that was destroyed by the ESMF Victory six months ago, then, fleet command is taking absolutely zero chances with this._

_The Archangel along with the rest of the entire 7th battle-fleet, and elements of the 6th, 8th and 10th are currently moving to intercept them before they reach the most likely destination for this Promethean force, as is an equal number of Zodiac battle-fleets._

_However there is only one slight problem in that the most likely destination of this incursion isn't Earth, but is in fact the homeworld of the Hansa star empire… Lantea!_

_Right now fleet admiral Max Quest, aboard the fleet flag ship the dreadnought ESMF Manta, is currently trying to gain permission for the combined fleet to cross the neutral zone and enter Imperial controlled airspace, but several members of the Imperial high command (and, I'm afraid to say it, even some of our own battle group commanders), are being down right pig-headed in their stubbornness!_

_This would be downright funny in another time and place if it wasn't for the seriousness of the situation, and the fact that even at maximum burn, the combined fleet would only arrive at the best an hour to an hour and half before the predicted time of the Promethean forces, and that's only if we leave within the next twenty minutes._

_Combat Log update._

_This is going to be close…_

_… The fleet has crossed into Imperial airspace but at current speed, we will be around two hours behind the Promethean forces._

_Admiral Quest has ordered the fleet to go to maximum burn, but we are slowly losing ships as they drop out of formation._

_The most optimistic of tactical estimates show that only two hundred of our ships, just a little more than a full combat wing, will arrive in time to help, out of a force consisting of seven thousand, including a squadron from the Macross Cannon force, to aid the Imperial forces around Lantea._

_The Republic forces are suffering even worse, with estimates showing that only the 17th battle-group, some one hundred ships, will make it in time._

_Thank the maker however that we have been picking up Imperial forces as we go. So far a total of fifty mixed ships have joined with the fleet, mostly destroyers and heavy cruisers but all so a few battleships, with another six battle-fleets expected to meet us in the Lantea system. We are rapidly having to work out formations and battle plans for the forthcoming engagement, thankfully we have the bases of the recent war against the Disruptors, so we at least have some sort of a base from which to work from._

_I'm sure that I'm not the only person within the combined fleet remembering the last time that a fleet of this size was assembled or what it cost the quadrant…_

_Yet what worries me the most isn't the size of the fleet, but the fact that of the two hundred ships from the Macross fleet contingent which will arrive in time to Lantea, only an eighth, including the Archangel herself, have had the new armour, pin-point barriers, shields and weapons that the ESMF Victory brought back with her from her time in the Delta quadrant, installed or being upgraded with, and sub-consciously that this will mean two things._

_First that we will be at the tip of this fleet's spear, and second, that the Prometheans will throw everything including the kitchen sink, at us so that they can sink us fast._

_How I wish that the Big M was here, but she's on the other side of the ESUN dealing with the Triolian high council._

-{[]}-

Admiral Cutter closed the log and walked out of the ready room and onto the bridge of the Macross Fleet vessel ESMF Archangel, the second of the type two SDF Macross class battlefortress to be built, and settled into his command chair and turned to face the ships executive officer and aide-de-camp commodore Hunter, "Report commodore?"

The Zentron commodore nodded his head by way of greeting his commanding officer before consulting the PADD he was holding. "Sir, all stations report that they are ready. All weapons stations and destroids are manned and standing-by, shields, pin-point barriers and the new trans-phasic armour are all in the green. Flight operations reports that all of the ghost combat drones are now off-line and their power cores have been removed, and colonel Neumeier's MACO's are deploying the last of the emergency shields and defence turrets around the critical areas."

Cutter nodded, praying that those defence turrets and shields wouldn't be needed, and that if they had to be used then they would hold long enough to allow the ships compliment of MACO's, fleet security personnel and the special operations team, which was now a part of all ships after their use during the ESMF Victory's return from the delta quadrant, to fight of any Promethean boarding parties that managed to board the ship.

"I've taken the liberty of having major Sisko assign all of the security and MACO's to those areas, and had them issued with FN-P117's, the new night shade plasma grenades and hand-to-hand weapons."

Cutter turned around to face the Archangel's chief of security gun-sight commander and second-in-command, and tried not to scowl. "You've issued guns and grenades to the crew? What happens if they damage any of the critical systems in the middle of the battle?"

Commander Kira Hudson stared back with a grim smile. "The one seventeen's don't have the power to go through the ships bulkheads, but if fleet command is right, then they should be able to destroy the servos of a Promethean Knight, that's if they are able to bypass their personal shielding system." He said with a scowl at the idea.

Cutter tried not to flinch at the prospect that any ricochets maiming or killing the crew as they were fighting for their lives, but he had to admit that the idea of the old school style projectile weapons was worth the risk. More so after reading some of the highly classified reports from the Macross-E's latest encounter with the Prometheans.

"Oh. Well let's hope that we don't need to find out." Hunter said wishfully.

"Hopping gets you killed, sir." Muttered Hudson, just loud enough so that it could be heard by both Cutter and Hunter who cringed and exchanged worried looks. However before either the admiral or Hunter could respond, master chief petty officer Brown spoke up. "Admiral, we are receiving a hail from and Imperial star cruiser, the Blood Haze."

"On screen." Cutter ordered while confusion crossed his mind for a moment until he saw the face which appeared on the main tactical screen. "Dux Atriums, well this is a surprise."

Atriums nodded and smiled warmly over the comm-link. "Actually it's Prefectus now," he said with a slight grown, "and yes it is a pleasant one." He paused and turned indicating to somebody just off screen to step into view. "I have been reliably informed that your gun-sight commander knows my executive officer."

Cutter turned and was surprised, if not downright stunned, to see his second-in-command actually smile, and judging by the movement of Hunters eyebrows, he was just as shocked.

"Hello again Kira." Said sub-commander Dvorak with a smile on her face just as freely. "I'm glad that you survived the war intact."

"Dilectus meus, et unus. It's good to see you again Karina." The sub-commander blushed and Cutter made a mental note to ask the commander the exact meaning of the phrase after the battle. "It's been a few years. I tried to get a message to you a few months after the war, but I never got a reply."

"I was… occupied," Said Dvorak as Atriums coughed lightly by her side, "I would like the chance to catch up after the battle, as we have a lot to talk about."

Hudson raised his eyebrow in a rather concerned way before nodding. "Sure Karina. You still owe me that personal tour of the imperial senate building remember?"

Dvorak smiled, yet everyone on the bridge of the Archangel caught the worry in her eyes, "I remember, and I always keep my promises. Te amo salvator meus commander." Without waiting for a reply the imperial sub-commander walked off the screen, presumably to return to her post.

The bridge crew of the Archangel and Prefectus Atriums watched her leave before Atriums returned to the centre of the screen to continue addressing Cutter.

"So… with the re-acquaintances concluded, shall we get down to business?" He said as he nodded to a member of his own bridge crew who was off-screen. "My ship, and another five conquer class heavy battle-cruisers have been assigned to work with you and are now moving into formation with your ship. I've had the transponder codes transmitted to you."

"Then I guess that we need to go over the attack plans for the combined unit." Asked Cutter.

"Yes. I do hope that you and your gun crews are able to keep up with the Imperial fleet's finest heavy battle-cruiser squadron." While the smile which was on Atriums' face was that of a predator, his eyes clearly betrayed the fact that he was laying down a friendly challenge.

"Oh I'm sure that we will in fact," replied cutter, as both Hunter and Hudson grunted in support. "The same stakes?"

Atriums laughed, much to the shock of both bridge crews. "Why of course, one case of Sith ale against one case of Scottish whisky and we drink on the Imperial war college when the battle is done. See you on the flip side, admiral."

"Donec omnes unum sint, Prefectus." With that said the signal cut and returned to the familiar image of the ships view screen and the star flying past.

Looking around the bridge Cutter stood up. "Alright people. We will reach Lantea in five hours, so as of right now all Alpha and Beta shift personal are to take a three hour break. Gamma and Delta shifts is to cover for now, then report to their assigned battle stations when they are relieved."

Cutter watched as his orders were carried out before making his way back across the bridge to the ready room to write a letter to his wife and daughters back on Epsilon III.

-{[]}-

Five hours later Cutter looked around the bridge as he sat in the command chair. The crew was nervous, and rightly so with the ships senior special operations members, lieutenant commander Janet Welsh in her personal exo-frame equipped with the fire force assault weapons system.

The Promethean's had also increased speed, which had forced the fleet to do the same, and although they were mere moments from entering the Lantea system the increase in speed had cost them a further one hundred ships from the combined fleet, including their supper heavy hitters of the ten Macross III class cannons.

"We'll be in system in the next two minutes." Said an officer at one of the lower comm-scan stations.

"Activate and deploy the armour, arm trans-phasic, neidhart and Korinthos torpedoes. Relay those instructions to the other ships in the battle group." Ordered Cutter as the distinctive sound of the armour clunking into place over the ship's hull, and though he knew that the sound was normal the sound of it still gave admiral Cutter the creeps, as it sound as if something was trying to claw its way into the ship.

Even though the Prometheans has assimilated the armour technology which had been developed by the ESMF Victory. The Macross Fleet corps of combat engineers felt that they had modified it to increase any ships chance of survival by seventy-five to eighty percent when engaging the Promethean forces, and against the other races of the galaxy then the odds of survival was well over one hundred percent for even the smallest Fire Hawk class ship.

The other modifications that the ESMF Victory had gained from its run-in with its future self-had also been applied to the Archangel, as well as several others in the battle-group.

Yes, those upgrades would meant that the Archangel would be living up to her name as the defender of the weak, and be part of the first assault to engage the Promethean force, but right now Cutter would rather have all of those upgrades instead of facing the Prometheans instead of being on any of the ships that didn't.

"Thirty seconds."

"Order the assault force to begin the plan."

Around the Archangel the combined elements from the Imperial fleet and the Zodiac forces seemed to shimmer and then fade from sight as they activated their clocking systems and slipped behind the dozen assorted SDF class battlefortress's and Drake class SDF gunfortress's which had already had their own trans-phasic armour energized and deployed.

"Tactical, concentrate on the closest ship, focus on the areas which fleet command told us." Thank the maker for commander Preston and Ms Annika Handson. They had both sent as much data as they could to the combined fleet, especially about where to target on each known type of ship which was likely to be in the assault, the challenge though was going to find the right spot on a perfect shape for the fleet's gunners.

"Reverting to normal space, now." Said lieutenant Arnold Newmann, another member of the ships special operations squad in his own exo-frame and the snip force assault weapons system from the primary helm station.

As the lead elements of the force returned to normal space they were forced to immediately go into evasive manoeuvres due to their flight path being littered with the wrecks of the Imperial home fleet, over two hundred ships from B-Type dreadnoughts to smaller Orion class frigates and raptor class space fighters all lay in ruin before the assembled allied forces.

As the Archangel, despite her massive size, seemed to dance around the debris as loud and painful scraping could be heard as the ship literally smashed through the remains of an older Knight class assault ship. Suddenly the whole ship shook twice in rapid succession.

"Report!" commanded Hunter before Cutter could respond.

"Sir, one of the Nazca's collided with some debris." Stated Hudson as he gripped his console to help keep his balance. "They spun into the Liverpool's port engines. Even with their new armour, they've suffered heavy damage forcing them to drop back."

"Bohze Moi!" Cutter cursed under his breath, they weren't even in actual combat and already they had lost two ships. This was definitely going to be a long battle.

"We have ten Promethean vessels engaged with around two thousand Imperial ships. Three of them are disengaging from the main fight and are on an intercept course."

"On screen," Everyone watched as the main tactical display changed to show three of the giant warships turned and slowly advanced on their small force of ships.

"Admiral, the enemy fleet consists of five Saratoga type 3 battleships, two Acidalium class destroyers, a single Grave class and two type six Saratoga class. Both of the type sixes and one of the type threes are moving to engage us."

"Load Korinthos missiles. Order all other ships to do the shame. All ships are to target the left most warship but they are to fire on orders from the Archangel."

"Battle-group responding"

"Entering optimal firing range in ten seconds." Stated Hudson from the tactical station.

Cutter waited, as the seconds appeared to stretch into years as they slowly ticked away, and he could have sworn that those ten seconds were the longest of his life.

"The Prometheans have opened fire." Announced colonel Wildhorse from the tactical plot table as the ship shock as a beam from the type three warship collide with the armour of the Archangel. "The armour is down by five percent, but its regenerating."

"Looks like the egg-heads at R&D did their job." Stated Hudson.

Cutter nodded as he looked down at the small holo-screen built into the command chair. The other elements of the combined fleet were even now reverting from hyperspace to engage the Promethean forces from multiple vectors. Again these elements were sphere-headed by as many of the upgraded and advanced ships of the Macross Fleet as was possible with both Republic and imperial forces sweeping around the Macross Fleet ships to allow them to unleash a Macross missile massacre strike.

"Let's not give them a chance to adapt. Target pre-set co-ordinates Alpha and open fire all ships."

From all around the ship, at the primary missile launch points and from the Destroid's a volley of two thousand Korinthos proton missiles launched followed by six high powered shots from the main Gottfried cannons. The other Macross fleet ships followed suit as the stealthed units dropped their cloaks, unleashing an incredible volley of disrupter and smart drones. All of the combined fleet then fried at the exact same location that they had targeted with their missiles and torpedoes with Gottfried's and ion cannons.

The type three warship shook at the amount of fire power which impacted it. The damage it caused left a massive crater into the massive ship, which could clearly be seen on the bridge of the Archangel.

"Target ship has suffered massive damage at the targeted location. Internal power levels have dropped by sixty percent, it's trying to withdraw."

"Let's not give them a chance, concentrate fire on that ship, target secondary locations which command sent us. Order all ships to concentrate fire on that ship."

The ship shook again as both of the type six warships opened fire with their own enhanced beam weapons on the Archangel.

"Armour is down to seventy-five percent. It seems that those warships are using the sheer power in the weapons in an attempt to counter the adaptations to the armour grid." Reported the ships senior pilot major April 'Ice Queen' O'Neill from the flight operations station.

"Well then, let's not give them too long to do that. Commander Hudson, order all of the armoured units to use attack patter Gloval three. All other units are to go full evasive." Ordered Cutter as the ship continued to shake under the fire that the Prometheans.

"Targeted ships power is down seventy-five percent, I'm reading massive secondary explosions."

"Commander, if you please…" asked Cutter looking over at Hudson, which caused him to smiled viciously as the helm turned the Archangel's bow directly towards the heavily damaged warship as he released a full salvo of neidhart anti-battle station torpedoes directly into the damaged section of the type three warship.

Two of the Imperial conquer class heavy battlecruisers also fired on the damaged Promethean warships adding to the massive amount of fire power heading toward the doomed warship.

The warship shuddered, and seemed to move backwards, as its reactor cores where destroyed from the massive amount of fire launched at it, but in its dying breath it managed to destroy three Laurasia class before snagging an Imperial A-type and an Republic Mars class and dragging them close enough so that they were destroyed as the warship exploded.

In retaliation, the two remaining type six warships vaporised seven more ships from the allied assault force.

"Deculture, were the hell is the rest of the fleet?" muttered the young crewmember at one of the comm-scan stations.

As if in answer to the plea, the rest of the fleet, some three thousand ships, including ten Macross III class supper dreadnoughts, reverted from hyperspace and launched a devastating alpha strike package.

"Admiral, orders from the Manta, our task force is to pull back to mobile position one and regroup ASAP." Stated master chief Thomas Brown, as he manned the main communications console.

"Acknowledge the orders and transmit them to the remaining ships. Then get me a brief damage report." Said Cutter.

"Nothing major, we're down too…" Hudson stopped as something on the scanners caught his attention. "Deculture! Sir, I'm detecting a massive disturbance in sub-space!"

"What kind?" Asked Cutter and Hunter together, both having a really, really sick feeling that they didn't want to know the answer to the question.

"I'm not sure, however it has very close characteristics to that of the Promethean hyperspace windows."

"Get me the Manta!" Cutter almost screamed the order through his clenched teeth.

"Too late!"

The crew watched in horror as a newer, and much larger contingent of Promethean warships exited from the maw of the massive vortex.

"How many?" Cutter asked in a whisper as he stood slowly from his command chair.

"Sensors show thirty type five warships, sixty destroyers, five Grave class, ten type nine warships and two Key class dreadnoughts."

Cutter walked towards the forward section of the command area of the bridge, as all around the Archangel ships exploded left and right as the massive Promethean armada began their true assault. "By the maker, this isn't an attack. It's an invasion."

-{[]}-

The Archangel shook again as another Promethean disruptor beam attempted to penetrate her armour.

"Armour is down to twenty-five percent, plus we've only got fifty Korinthos and ten neidhart torpedo's left, admiral. The linear cannons are off-line and the Destroids have had to fall back due to all of their ammunition being expended."

Cutter nodded grimly, unwilling to turn to look at Hudson as that meant looking at the dead bodies of Hunter and an ensign from one of the remaining science stations. The casualty reports were mounting rapidly but at least they were still in the fight.

The rest of the fleet on the other hand…

… Well that was another natter, as another three ships exploded as they rammed a type ten warship. It was starting to get desperate as the Promethean armada was slowly advancing towards Athos. They had tried for Lantea but the planetary defence system had torn through them enough to make them extremely wary of being trapped between it and the allied fleet.

Never the less, the fleet was struggling.

Of the initial three thousand and fifty vessels, over one thousand were gone, the rest, including the Archangel, were suffering moderate to heavy damage.

The Prometheans, well they still had twenty warships, nine of their type ten's and a single of their key class dreadnoughts.

The ship rung like a bell as a nearby warship continued to pursue them.

"Where the devil are our escorts?" Demanded Cutter gripping the arm-rest on his command chair for dear life.

"We've only four left, the Blood Haze, two Daedalus class and that Eternal class from that contractor Sandline Galactic." Answered Brown as a medic tried to get him to stand still to treat a gash on his left arm.

Cutter cursed again. The Prometheans were systematically targeting all of the advanced and armoured ships in the fleet, and doing a bloody fine job of it too, and as far as Cutter could tell their where only five such ships left, and the Archangel seemed to be the only one that was in fairly good condition.

"Ask the admiral again…"

Brown nodded as he tried to contact the fleet command ship, "Sir, the Manta's gone, as well as the ESMF Red Venom, Melbourne and Trafalgar."

Cutter swivelled to look at Brown, all four of the ESUN senior admirals were gone. "Who's in charge?"

Brown shrugged. "The Imperial command ships are gone and the Starscream just rammed a type ten warship."

Even the allied admirals were gone, and without a flagship the combined fleet would struggle to survive for much longer, though even with a senior admiral, Cutter suspected that they wouldn't last till the 4th and 5th fleets lead by the ESMF Macross–E, arrived in less than an hour.

"Send to all ships, I'm authorizing the use of the new trans-phasic drone torpedoes. If any ship have them and are far enough away from either planet, use them. I'll deal with high-command if and when we make it through this alive."

Brown nodded while he transmitted the message to the remaining Macross fleet ships. "Sir, our escorts are inquiring about the new weapons."

"On screen." On the main tactical display the image of Atriums, a Republic black and the captain of the Sandline Galactic vessel appeared. "Gents, how's your day going?" Atriums rolled his eyes at the joke, the fallen support beam and the fire being dealt behind him told the story well enough. The other two commander's merely laughed.

"We're going to use an experimental weapon on the Prometheans, I'll need you to launch a strafing run to allow us time to close in and fire."

The three men merely nodded as the closed their respective comm-links.

"Newmann, set course for the nearest type ten, Hudson once we have a clear shot and the escorts are out of the kill zone feel free to clear my sky of these cybernetic freaks." Both officers nodded as the mighty type two battlefortress turned towards it pursuer.

While the Archangel completed her turn, the allied ships strafed between the two vessels, but the Prometheans treated the as if they were flies, literally swatting aside an Imperial Daedalus class, which collided with the warship, shattering the outer hull.

"Target that explosion and fire!"

Everyone on the bridge watched with baited breath and in morbid fascination as the two advanced battle station assault weapons leaped across the gap between the two warships.

They could scarcely believe their eyes as the warheads actually passed through the warships shields and actually entered the small moon sized warship. A second later two truly massive explosions occurred deep within the ship, forcing it to shudder to a halt.

"Power levels are down by nearly seventy percent." Announce Brown.

"Once more," ordered Cutter as two more of the drones leapt towards the heavily damage Promethean warship, which tried to shoot down the highly advanced death shots which were closing to kill it.

As the second pair of explosions took place deep within the Promethean vessel it suddenly accelerated towards the Archangel.

"EVAD!" Ordered Hudson, recognizing what the Prometheans were planning before Cutter did.

Cutter barely managed to hold onto his seat and could only watch in horror as chief Brown went flying past him before hitting the forward bulkhead with a sickening thud near him.

"Target destroyed." Stated Hudson, as he re-routed the operations systems to his console. "Sir, I'm reading an engine core breach on the Blood Haze."

"Evacuate as many of the crew as you can with the transporters, but get us clear before they blow." Cutter ordered as he stood and walked towards the body of Brown, to confirm if he was dead or if there was a chance to save him. A quick check for a pulse told him all he needed to know, but he pulled the body away from the helm.

"How you holding up Meer?" he asked the young, and freshly minted, ensign Campbell. She had only joined the crew at the last re-supply, and was less than six months out of the Robotech academy. He suspected that there was something going on between her and Hudson, but they were both officers, and he hoped that if they survived this they would get the chance to talk and see.

Campbell looked up at the admiral. "Fine sir, but all things considered I'd much rather be on Heliopolis station enjoying some R&R." She said as she smiled weakly to try and reassume him, but her eyes told him the truth.

Cutter nodded in agreement as the entry hatch opened to allow sub-commander Dvorak and a member of the ships Special Forces, Devil Squad land op's specialist ensign Jake Rockwell if he was right, walked onto the bridge. "Atriums?" he asked.

Dvorak shook her head as she turned and walked over towards Hudson at the tactical station, and whispered something to him, before turning to face Cutter.

"He died during the last attack, thank-you for trying to save us, I fear however that it won't mean much in the grand scheme of things."

Cutter gave her a sad smile as he lowered himself back into the command chair. "How are we doing Kira?"

"We're down to fifteen percent on the armour, though it is slowly regenerating. Shields and pin-points are ready, but they won't last long in this shit storm. Gottfried's are at twenty-five percent, linear cannons, destroids and Valliant's are all out of action, due to their ammunition being expended plus we've only got fifty Korinthos and ten neidhart torpedo's left, and we're down to sixteen of those new battle-station buster drones left."

"I guess that some of the Big M's luck is rubbing off on us," muttered Cutter, "Where are the Promethean's?"

"Five warships, three are type ten, eta is under a minute, sir."

"Reinforcements?"

"None in range sir, the ESMF Macross and her battle-group are still five minutes out."

Cutter stood and walked to the helm and rested his hands on the back of both the pilot and co-pilot seats. "Very well, bring us about straight down their throats. If were going down, then I for one intend to take as many of those cybernetic freaky sons of bitches with me to Ne'Tu as I can."

"Aye sir." Came the enthusiastic reply. "Course programed in, ready to execute on your command admiral."

"Let's storm the gates of hell," he said as he turned and looked at the tactical station. "Command and sub-commander, I want you to make every shot count, clear those cybernetic freaks out of my sky!"

Both commanders, replied with an animalistic and evil smile, "By your command." Stated Dvorak.

"As they say 'who wants to live forever.'" Hudson said, as he placed his hand on Dvorak's.

Cutter smiled too, the strange mood that made him prodder than he had ever been of this ship and the crew, "I much prefer the line from Shakespeare's Henry the fifth, 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more'," He said as he looked around the bridge, and the few faces left nodded solemnly to each other in turn, even the senior pilot major April 'Ice Queen' O'Neill. "Very well, we have an appointment to keep, let's not keep them waiting then shall we."

In an act of both pure defiance, and that belittled its massive size, the wounded ESMF Archangel turned and closed on the massive forms of the incoming Promethean warships.

"Divert all power to the forward shields, pin-points and armour, hell take it from both the reflex cannon and life support, somehow I doubt we will be needing it where we're heading…" he left the rest of the statement unsaid to hang in the air, and air that was soaked in the smell of death and destruction.

"Oh how nice, they are lining up for us." Stated Dvorak somewhat jovially and somehow very familiar with Macross fleet controls and consoles.

"Well then let's not disappoint our hosts Kira, if you be so kind as to let them know that we are here." Ordered Cutter.

From the remaining missile and torpedo tubes the last of the Archangel's anti-battle station neidhart torpedoes launched in a massive Macross missile massacre which impacted the central most warship as tracer fire and Gottfried cannon fire concentrated on the same point.

As the missile and torpedo tubes where reloaded for a second strike using the new drones, the sole remaining bridge science officer ensign Zefram 'Zee' Cochrane shouted out, "Admiral, I've got a sub-space disturbance forming at location yellow alpha three. It's amazing!"

"We'll look at it later ensign," answered Cutter angrily, "Fire trans-phasic drones."

"Wait!" Screamed Cochrane, but it was too late.

As the full volley of ten of the highly advanced drone weapons burst forth from the Archangel, all targeting the three most central most warships of the approaching formation.

The eight drones which were fired at the two warships which were off-centre, travelled and slammed into their targets at ninety-nine percent the speed of light, shattering the massive warships and managing to take out the three remaining warships with secondary explosions.

However the crew of the Archangel never saw this sight, as the two drones which had been aimed at the central most warship collided with the sub-space disturbance and detonated within. Before the bridge crew could even react, a massive wave of sub-space energy was released from within the deepest reaches of the mysterious regions of sub-space and enveloped the mighty Macross type two class battlefortress.

When the energy wave had dissipated, and the residual sensor interference from the simultaneous destruction of the five warships had died down, all that was detected by the Macross-E's battle group, the allies and the Promethean forces was that the ESMF Archangel had been destroyed in a last and valiant act of pure defiance.


	2. Chapter 2: Picking up the Pieces

**Chapter 02: Picking up the Pieces**

Kira Hudson groaned as he pulled himself up, using the side of his console to help him as his right leg was shattered just above his ankle. "Erg, did anyone catch the number of that warship?"

"I don't know, but I think that it might be plastered onto the forward sectors of your main gun." Muttered Dvorak as she clutched onto her right shoulder, while lying on the floor next to the tactile station.

He reached down to help her to stand up, but as he did so he caused her to catch it on the edge of the console, making her grit her teeth to avoid screaming out with the pain that it caused her.

"Broken?" Hudson asked.

She nodded in the affirmative. "It sure feels like it." She took a quick look around at the damaged remains of the bridge, "However I think that I got off lightly compared to your ship though."

Hudson slowly cast his gaze over the damage on the bridge catching sight of the damage control board, till he saw the helm, "Meer!"

The form of the young ensign Campbell was slumped over the side of the co-pilots console unmoving, as Hudson used his own FN-P117 assault rifle as a makeshift crutch while he dragged himself down to check on her. Once he was close enough to her he reached over and checked for a pulse, muttering a small prayer when he thankfully found one. "Meer, are you alright?"

Groaning as she slowly came too, Campbell lifted her head and looked up at Hudson through a blood soaked face from a cut above her left eye. "Kir… Kira? What the hell happened?"

"We survived, but beyond that…" he said as he turned and saw that both Rockwell and Cochrane where checking on the admiral, who was lay un-moving on the deck plating in front of his chair. Seeing this Hudson reached across Campbell and pressed the intercom controls on the central column between her and lieutenant Newman in the primary helm location.

"Sickbay, this is the bridge, we need a medical party up here a.s.a.p." There was no reply. "Sickbay?"

"Sorry sir, we're trying to pick up the pieces down here." Came the static filled voice of doctor Morse.

"Kirsty, where's doctor Fallion?"

"Dead commander. Along with most of the staff and some of the patients. I'm transferring doctor Smith up to the bridge now. I've been getting sporadic reports from all over the ship. How bad is it up there?"

"Bad. The admiral's down, we will need a medical party up here to collect him as I have a hunch that the transporters are down."

Kirsty Morse harrumphed in agreement. "Wouldn't be against it. I'll get back to you as soon as we get everything sorted out down here. Sickbay out."

Hudson turned to face the wreck that used to be the bridge of the Archangel. "Ok, could someone activate doctor Smith program."

A few seconds later and a swift kick of a console later the holographic form of doctor Joe Smith appeared, "Please state the nature of …" doctor Smith trailed off as he saw the destruction that was all around him, "What on earth happened up here?" he asked as he knelt down next to Cutter opening the emergency medical kit nearby.

The remaining bridge crew shared a look with Hudson before the commander answered. "We sort of got into a little bit of a fight."

"Indeed, and just who did we decide to pick a fight with this time?" Asked Smith as he studied the readings on his medical scanner.

"The Prometheans." Everyone answered at the same time.

Smith looked up from his examination of the admiral with a hint of shock and concern, "Really? Well then, I'm surprised that you're not all dead or worse…"

Hudson laughed, but stopped after a sharp pain shot through his right side. "You and me both doc, you and me both." He said as he looked back over towards his station where sub-commander Dvorak was, "Speaking of which…"

She nodded and accessed the ships external scanner, but just had to stare at the readings even after running the scans three more times. "That… that can't be right."

"What?"

"Well according to those readings there are zero starships within scanner range."

"WHAT!" Everyone that heard asked.

"That's what these ESMF scanners of yours are saying."

"On screen."

Karina gave a small futile laugh as she pointed at the damaged view screen. "I'm good but I'm not a miracle worker."

Hudson pinched the bridge of his nose at the bad joke as he turned to look at the view screen, or what was left of it as a support pylon that had fallen from the overhead lighting sector and smashed down through the lights and straight into the screen, thank-fully the fallen beam hadn't pierced the forward hull bulkhead.

"Ok, let's forget that idea and stick it on the repair list."

"At what number?" Asked a groggy ensign Rockwell as he removed his helmet and looked at the damage control board which was a wash of red, orange and yellow. "Two hundred twenty seven, or three thousand and forty nine sir."

Hudson gave the land operations specialist a cold hard stare before saying, "Very funny Rocky."

Campbell looked up from her co-pilots seat, after pulling up the damage control board on her console. "Who's kidding, looking at this there are close to five thousand reports that need fixing, and that's not counting the lack of any ships outside."

Hudson looked up at the ceiling and sighed. "Well on the bright side at least there's no Promethean Knights aboard the ship."

He wasn't sure which hit him first, Campbell's hand as she slapped his side or the pieces of debris which was thrown at him by Rockwell and Dvorak. "Erm, did I just say that?" He asked.

As if on cue, the hatch to the bridge cracked open part way, causing every abled bodied person to take aim at the entry hatchway.

"Is anyone still alive in there?" Came the voice from the other side of the hatchway.

Dvorak, Campbell, Rockwell and Newmann all fixed Hudson with a stare so cold that the vacuum of space was warmer as they holstered their weapons.

"This is commander Hudson, who's that?"

"Lieutenant Welsh sir. I've got an imperial officer here with me, Optio Granger."

Dvorak lowered her head and pinched the bridge of her nose for a second before looking over at Hudson and mouthing, "Imperial intel."

Hudson tilted his head and tapped his personal assault rifle. Dvorak smirked as she considered the suggestion for a brief moment, before turning to help Rockwell, Welsh and Granger with the hatch.

Hudson left them too it and pressed the intercom once more. "Bridge to engineering, please respond."

"This is major Murdoch, am I to assume that both admiral Cutter and commodore Hunter are incapacitated?"

Hudson groaned lightly while muttering, "Why did that guy have to be the one that answered." Before speaking a little louder, "The admiral is down and commodore Hunter is dead along with several other crew members. What's the status down there?"

"Where to begin sir. Half of the engineering crew are dead, including colonel Tracy. The other half is busy repairing all of the problems which are present here in engineering. The drive core is off-line, reflex reactors have scrammed, but the emergency Helium three generators are working for now. I would highly recommend that you do not move the ship until we have had time to examine all of the components in the engines. So if you would be so kind as to ask the Prometheans not to attack us for the next six point seven-five days, I and the remaining engineering staff would be extremely appreciated."

Hudson looked at the view screen, or rather the remains of it and tried not to laugh. "Well it looks like we have lost everyone for the moment."

"Indeed. Well as long as you can refrain from any of your usual antics commander, I may just be able to get us to a fleet-station for repair."

The bridge crew all tried, unsuccessfully to hide their smirks at the remarks from the Trojan officer.

"I'm sure that I can keep from picking a fight for the next week or so major." Growled Hudson through gritted teeth. "Can you please tell me what is working?"

"Not much sir. I believe that the fighter and destroid wings and other auxiliary craft are still intact on both flight decks, but I will dispatch a detail to them once the proceeding one hundred and thirty more critical repairs have been completed."

Resisting the urge to go down to engineering and punch the smug ass through an air lock for stating the obviousness of the situation. "Ok, can you tell me what is working?"

"Not much I'm afraid, life support but just barely, the emergency synthesizers and the nanolathes, however I'm afraid not much else. In fact the only major system which appears to be working within acceptable normal levels are the linear cannons and the transporters."

"You're got to be fucking kidding!" Muttered Rockwell as the hatch finally opened, earning him a sharp look from Hudson.

"You have got to be joking!" Said Hudson, smirking pinching the bridge of his nose, as the bridge crew survivors started to snigger.

"Trojan's do NOT 'joke' commander, now if there is nothing else sir, I must get back to repairing the ship." Replied Murdoch and closed the comm-link without waiting for a reply.

"The transporters?" Muttered Campbell, before breaking out in a fit of laughter with Newmann, Rockwell, Cochrane and Hudson. "Will wonders never cease."

"I agree." Said Hudson as he turned to face Dvorak, Rockwell, Campbell, Welsh and Granger. "Right, it seems that we've finally gotten a break. Once engineering has confirmed that the transporters are working safely, we'll beam the admiral down to sickbay and then doc we'll transfer you back down there, after you've treated us. We need to work how many of the crew are left. Welsh take Granger and Rockwell and conduct a deck by deck search, or as best as you can. I want you to check every room, crawl-way, maintenance tube and storage space, make sure you locate everyone and that we don't have any 'stowaways' aboard."

Welsh and Rockwell nodded replacing their helmets while Granger saluted Dvorak before following.

Hudson limped back to his station, catching sight of his friend and the ships forth in command colonel David Wildhorse pinned to the deck by a support frame.

"Sub-commander, for the time being I'm making you my executive officer. I need you to co-ordinate with the rest of the ship and get me a full damage report a.s.a.p." Dvorak nodded and started to us the controls on the tactical station like a natural ESMF officer.

'_I'll have to ask her about that later_', Hudson thought to himself as he turned back to face Campbell and ensign Cochrane, "Ensigns, I need you to get in contact with someone. Macross fleet command, Zodiac control, Imperial Star Command, hell I'll take Triolian high council or some Decepticon pirates just not the Prometheans, also try to work where the frack we are."

The two young ensigns both nodded and got to work using the helm controls at the co-pilots station.

Hudson looked down at the tactical console and the combat readiness status of the mighty battlefortress or rather the lack there of. "Me. I'll see if I can't find us something, just in case we need to fight any passing ships."

-{[]}-

Several hours later Hudson pushed some of the small debris off of the table in the main observation lounge just behind the bridge and settled into his normal chair, as the door to the lounge opened and the pair of crewman left carrying a support beam between them.

He wasn't exactly comfortable doing this as technically admiral Cutter was still in command, but with him down in sickbay along with his prognosis being critical, he was left with no choice.

He glanced at the doorway as it opened again and the rest of the surviving senior staff filled in and took a seat around the table.

"Ok, let's see what we have left that we can work with, so firstly how many of the crew survived?"

The first person to speak up was the senior most doctor, a Brit named Kirsty Morse. "We've lost two hundred and three crew members, including commodore Hunter, lieutenant colonels Wildhorse and Tracy as well as Doctor's Fallion and Jackson. I've also got another seventy-five in or around the medical facilities, with about half of them in intensive care, including the admiral."

"Add to that the fifty members of my surviving crew in the barracks on deck six, and the twenty-five in its infirmary as well." Stated Dvorak, "Those that are able to have been assisting with the repairs, yet we have been denied access to several locations for obvious reasons." She said as she giving and lieutenant Welsh the CO of Devil squad the ships special operations force.

"Well we do have a few secretes on board," muttered Welsh, the acting tactical officer gaining a few chuckles from the rest of the room.

"Alright, what about main power?"

"Both the reflex reactors and the drive core are still off-line, as I indicated earlier it will take at least a standard week before it is safe for an attempt a low power re-start."

"So we have no way of reaching any support?"

Murdoch, the senior most engineer left down in engineering so had been promoted to the de-facto chief of engineering tilted his head slightly before answering. "As a matter of fact we do. The two hanger decks on both ARMD cruisers took a little damage, but all of the Falcon's, Argo's, the two squadrons of Thunderbolts mark seven veritech fighters, five of the ESINT recon units and all of the Ghost fighter drones which are in an acceptable condition. The rest have been designated for spare parts, at least until we are able to reach a fleet station. Plus, rather incredibly all ten of the work-bees and the destroid force, are still useable. I've currently got my people and the hanger crew's giving them a full level one inspection before they take them out to carry out a level one check of the hull. I will have that report to you in four hours."

Hudson nodded, he was thankful that most of their air wing and destroid force was still intact. There had been no point in deploying them when they had been engaging the Prometheans, so both the Destroid crews and Thunderbolt pilots had been forced to shake, rattle and roll with the rest of the ship during the fight over Lantea.

"Ok, CAG get the ESINT's out there and do some recon of the system we're in." He said to major April 'Ice Queen' O'Neill the senior most pilot as he turned to face Campbell and the science officer, ensign Zefram 'Zee' Cochran.

"Umm, where are we exactly?"

The two young ensigns shared a look, a look filled with pain before Cochrane answered the question poised.

"Actually sir… we're in the Lantea system."

"So where's the empire?" Asked Dvorak.

"It's not there," answered Cochrane as he nervously played with his played with his hands, not liking the piercing look that the Imperial officer was giving him. "as far as we can tell, no one has ever lived on the surface of this Lantea Alpha and Beta's surface was destroyed around five to a ten million years ago by an orbital bombardment that makes the 'Rain of Death' look like a light shower."

Dvorak looked down sadly at the table as she digested the news and pondered how she was going to inform the surviving members of her crew.

"What about Macross fleet command?" Asked O'Neill, "Or Zodiac control?"

Campbell shook her head sadly, "I'm afraid I'm getting absolutely nothing on either on fleet-command or civilian channel, Imperial channels or Zodiac frequencies. Hell, I haven't gotten any sub-space signals at all, there seems to be a large amount of background radiometric interference from a totally unknown dimension of sup-space and an unusually high level of beta particles across all of the sub-space channels."

"Okay, well for the moment we're on our own then." Stated Hudson as he looked at each person in turn.

"Erm sir, I'm afraid that it gets worse…" Stated Cochrane as everyone within the observation lounge turned to face him and not enjoying the looks that he was catching off his crewmates, from that short statement. "I've… I have run a stellar check while I was calculating our current location and while most of the known astrological location markers are accounted for, there are a few problems."

"Such as?" Asked Hudson.

Cochrane swallowed hard as he used the controls on the table in front of him to activate the view screen at the back of the room with a star chart that showed the main astrological markers for both the alpha and beta quadrants. "This is the charts as they were just before we, for lack of a better term vanished." He said as several of the stars and nebular flashed blue. "And these are those same markers as close as we can find them now."

On the screen a second set of stars and nebular flashed red, all of them where close to their original locations, but none of them where in the correct place.

"Have you managed to figure out why so many of markers are out of place?"

"Stellar drift sir."

"Wait, wait. Would some someone please tell me what '_stellar drift_' is?" Asked doctor Morse.

"Sorry doc, to put it simply, it's a natural occurrence where stars are slowly moving away from each other, so I had the computer run an analysis to work out why the markers where out of alignment."

He paused as he activated the controls again to manipulate the maps on the screen so that they merged and the majority of the stars to match up and turn purple as they matched their normal positions, though there were some which stubbornly still refused to move into more predictable locations.

"And?" Promoted Morse.

"Well, the best reason that both Meer and myself could get from the results was that the local date was incorrect. All the data we have would suggest that the local date is somewhere around the late 20th century, maybe the early 21st century."

"They 20th century?" Asked everyone after a few seconds.

Cochrane shrugged. "Give or take ten years." The young ensign waited for all of the resulting emotions to settle down before he continued with his report. "I am afraid that it goes from bad to worse, commander. According to the quantum scans we've taken of the local stellar objects within sensor range, we appear to have not only moved through time but we have also left our own quantum universe."

"WHAT!" Screamed major O'Neill as thee staff meeting went from a normal quiet and controlled setting to a complete and utter mayhem.

Hudson buried his head on the table while the others all shouted and caused in angry disbelief. How where they get home, was that even going to be an option? Should they even try and find help within this strange and new universe? This was so far from anything that he had been taught him by his mentor admiral Ramius back when he was just a colonel serving as the executive officer on the ESMF Interceptor it wasn't even remotely funny.

He sighed and lifted his head up, taking in the very despondent looks of his fellow officers. "Okay people, it would appear that we are up that infamous creak without a paddle, and I have a feeling that we have sprung more than one leak."

It may have been a very bad joke, but somehow it seemed to work as the whole room chuckled and released some of the tension in the room.

"So the question is how do we go about figuring out the local political setup?" He left the statement hanging hoping that someone, anyone else, might have an idea or two.

"Commander, I don't believe that we can." Stated Murdoch as he took a sip of his raktajino. "To do so would be a violation of the shield directive zero-zero-one."

"Ah, that famous SD 001," muttered Dvorak sarcastically with air quotes.

"Indeed sub-commander," Murdoch said, choosing to ignore the Imperial officer's remarks. "we cannot afford to interfere in the development of the local political make up for this galaxy. Though I am unsure if it would be worse if this is a universe with or without an Earth Sphere Unified Nation."

"It wouldn't apply if the locals are a spacefaring species though." Said ensign Campbell meekly.

"Actually Ms Campbell, it does. If we have any technology which could upset the local balance of power, then we are duty bound to avoid any and all interference in the local political situation."

"That is realpolitik. The Macross fleet and the ESUN just love to stick your collective nose into anything you can, whenever you can."

"I think," stated Hudson, trying to cut off any reply from Murdoch which the engineer was probable forming in response. "I think that, for the time being, we place the discussion of SD 001 on the back burner for now, and concentrate on the more immediate situation."

He stood up and turned to look out the window at the back of the observation lounge.

"At this moment we're half blind, on secondary power and have next to no weapons. Therefore we need to repair the ship and set up some form of early warning system in the nearby star-systems." He turned back to face the rest of the room before addressing Murdoch directly.

"Major, I'll need you to send me a full and detailed damage report as soon as you and your engineering teams can, and for once feel free to be as detailed as you can."

Murdoch nodded, ignoring the slight about the Trojan comprehensiveness. "Yes sir. I'll have it to you as soon as I can."

"Ensigns and sub-commander Dvorak, I want you three to work with major O'Neill to pick viable locations in the surrounding systems and arrange for the deployment of ESINT equipped Thunderbolt's and an escort to scout them out, also CAG launch four Thunderbolt's with full F.A.S.T. packs and Ghost fighter escorts, as a combat air patrol."

"A C.A.P.?" Asked O'Neill disbelievingly.

"I'm afraid so, without the long or mid-range sensors coupled with the near total lack of power we've got at the moment we will need them to be our eyes and ears, and heaven forbid, our sword and shield as well."

"Understood sir." Said O'Neill with a slight nod, and started typing out a CAP rotation on her PADD.

Hudson glanced down at his own PADD before he looked around the room. "Ok, anything else you can think of people."

"Personal effects in the crew quarters sir?" Welsh said, obviously not entirely comfortable with this subject, but feeling that the subject needed to be discussed. "As major Sisko's teams are searching, they keep discovering a lot of personal effects, and I've been asked what to do with them by him a few times now sir."

"I'd suggest one of the smaller cargo decks sir." Suggested Campbell. "We could use it as a place of remembrance."

The others all nodded in agreement at the idea, it wasn't a very pretty thought but they'd need somewhere to grieve for their lost friends and colleagues provided that they lived long enough in this new universe to be able to do so.

"Do it. As for the rest of the stuff two groups. Group one will be things that seem to have sentimental value but no real use, as for the other group of things shall be stored in a secondary location, we can work out what we'll actually do with those two groups later." Hudson said as he scanned the faces of everyone in the room. "Alright, if there's nothing else, let's get back to work, I'd like the ship fixed before the admiral gets out of sickbay."

The group stood and left to return to their duties, all except Dvorak who stood and walked over to stand next to Hudson as he looked out the window towards the lifeless form of the planet Lantea Beta.

Hudson tried to give her a poker face smile, "Well, the recruitment poster did say '_Explore strange new worlds and meet new and exciting people_'."

Dvorak laughed an honest and pure laugh and Hudson felt better than he had in a very, very long time for hearing it. "Sometimes Kira you are beyond infuriating and at others…" she said as she leaned over so she could whisper into his ear slightly more easily, "… I would swear you're a Lantean and would want to pursue you." She kissed him gently on the cheek, then turned and left the observation lounge quickly before he had any opportunity to get his bearings once again.

Hudson watched her walk out as the doors to the main observation room closed behind her, while he sat back down in the first chair he came to.

"Why is it that I always have to fall for the ones which are unattainable ones?" He muttered to himself with a rare smile.

Since everything appeared to be going smoothly, and that there was nothing else planned for the next few hours he decided to catch a quick rest, but after opening his uniform tunic and easing back into the chair, he collapsed into a deep sleep.


	3. Chapter 03: Signs of Life

**Chapter 03: Signs of Life**

Sub-commander Dvorak of the Hansa Imperial Star Empire stood at the situation table at the rear of the still slightly damaged main bridge of the Archangel, and found herself continually trying not to laugh at the situation.

Through some galactic twist of fate, she had found herself as the acting first officer on a Macross Fleet SDF class battlefortress, and to make it even more interesting the ship and all those aboard were trapped in another universe, a universe which didn't have either a Earth Sphere Unified Nation or the Hansa Imperial Empire.

She knew that the remains of the crew from her own ship, the ISC Blood Haze survivors all seventy five of them, were dealing with the news about their location as well as she could hope for, but still better than most of the Archangel's crew, but even for a supposedly weaker species, they were coping well.

Although she highly suspected that the current need to repair the ship was taking priority over their own personal feelings for the time being, and that soon a high number of the crews compliment, both Imperial and Macross Fleeter alike, would need to make use of the ships trained psychiatrists.

Still, if through some miracle they did manage to make it back, she and the rest of the Imperial personal would be able to give one hell of a report to the Imperial high command on the internal workings of the type two SDF Macross class battlefortress and the Thunderbolt mark seven veritech transformable fighter-interceptor, the latest generation of the legendary veritech fighter-interceptor and counter to the Imperial's own Talon and Raptor fighters.

"Griffon flight has just entered sensor range, sub-commander." Reported the gunnery-chief who was manning the partially re-built flight operations station just left of her post at the situation table.

"Understood, have them transmit their sensor logs and flight data then clear them for landing and refuelling operations. I'm sure that major O'Neill will have a new set of patrol vectors for them soon enough."

"Aye ma'am."

Dvorak was impressed with the behaviour and the professionalism of the Archangel's crew, a compliment to their commanding officer. While she knew nothing of admiral Cutter beyond his name, her former commander Prefectus Atriums had spoken extremely highly of the man, and she could see that he was an excellent leader from the behaviour of his crew.

She scanned the report as it came in before she forwarded it off to Hudson, who was holed up in the observation lounge. His decision not to use either the admiral's flag-suit or the ships ready room was something she would've done herself if the situation had been reversed, but it was something which she had come to expect of him.

She paused in her skimming of the report as something caught her eye. She brought up the attached image files for that section of the report and stared at the first image in curiosity.

A large metallic circle on the surface of the planet that they were in orbit of. It was around seven meters tall and surrounded by ruins made of the metallic material and some evidence of orbital bombardment.

If it hadn't been for a purely random even, then the purpose of the structure would have remained a complete unknown, but while Griffon flight had been conducting scans on the area surrounding the ruins for Trinium and other materials which would be useful for the ship to help with the repairs, when an energy spike which had registered almost off the scales, had been detected from the structure.

The sensors in the ESINT pack had showed that the structure had released a huge amount of unstable verteron radiation which had settled down into a highly stable wormhole, from which the crews of Griffon flight had detected a small drone of some kind emerging.

The crew's had discreetly used their own scanners to scan the probe. They had found that it was a strange mix of both high and low levels of technology, but that most of the scanners where directed towards scanning the area within five kilometres of the structure.

Dvorak looked over the information and data about the structure and the alien probe once more, as for some reason this information seemed familiar to her.

"Flight, take over." She ordered as she downloaded the information to a PADD, before she turned and headed towards the observation lounge to talk with Hudson about this latest development.

-{[]}-

At the same time that Dvorak was looking at the report from Griffon flight on the bridge, doctor Morse was looking around the main ward of the ships main sickbay, and as much as she hated to admit it, but without the help of doctor Smith, even if he was a hologram, was a really great help. She was sure that without his help, she or another of the now limited number of ships doctors, would have made a mistake which would have cost them the life of someone.

With the immediate crisis dealt with, and none of the current patients where in need of any life-saving procedures, she had dismissed most of the medical staff with orders to catch at least five hours of sleep. Morse herself, was up to her neck in medical reports, for the admiral and the others who were still in critical condition.

She'd been in the operating room with the admiral alone for the last ten hours, and by some miracle and a hell of a lot of luck, she had somehow managed to stabilise him, but for some unknown reason he and the other critical cases were slowly slipping away, and there was nothing that she, or any of the other doctors, could do.

The admiral, like the other patients that were currently in the intensive care unit, were suffering from some kind of de-polarizing of their neural pathways, and with each passing hour there was one to two percent less registered neurological activity being detected in their individual brain scan's.

She had estimated that at their current comatose state they only had a month to six weeks before they were brain dead, and maybe three weeks of that time would they have enough cognitive ability left to actually talk, but giving the admiral or any of them a stimulant to bring them out of there comma's, it would increase their detrition and hasten their deaths.

She hated this feeling of complete uselessness, she had been training to become a doctor when her homeworld of Eden Prime had been invaded by the Disruptors back during the war. Back then she had come to know Hudson as he had been in charge of a small local resistance force, after his ship had been sunk in orbit while attempting to defend the planet, which had been operating the area of her colony so she had acted as the forces field medic even though she had only been a third year medical student at the time.

After the planet had been liberated by the combined forces of both the Alpha and Beta quadrant's, she had applied to the Macross academy as a medic. It wasn't until after she had graduated from the academies medical school and being assigned to the Archangel that she learnt that Hudson was also aboard and was the head of the ships security and third in command, with admiral Cutter being in overall command for the ships combined destroid, air-wing and MACO's.

Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves before she reached over her desk and lifted the intercom phone and punched in the four digit code for the bridge.

"Sickbay to bridge, I need for commander Hudson to come down to my office as soon as he can. It is concerning the admiral and the others in ICU."

"Copy doctor, I'll pass the message along to the commander." Came the reply from a still static filled comm-line, which was short meaning that it was probably one of the Trojans that had answered, and while she hated to place the weight of this kind of decision on his shoulders, it was a decision which was beyond her and went against her oath as a doctor, so she would leave it up to the commander and pray that he would be able to cope with it.

-{[]}-

Dvorak pressed the buzzer control on the controls for the observation lounge for the third time beginning to become concerned at the continued no answer from the other side of the hatch. Slightly worried as she opened the hatch as to what she would find as she carefully walked into the semi-dark lounge.

Sitting in the same seat he had used in the staff meeting several hours ago and fast asleep, with his head resting on his arms and his uniform tunic open to about half way and slumped forward onto the table.

She smiled, as she was glad that he was getting some rest, and while she was tired herself she also knew that she could go a little longer on just raktajino before she needed rest unlike her human counterpart, she also realised that the extra workload that had just landed on his shoulders like a destroid due to the admiral being in the ships ICU, coupled with the unknowns of the ship being in a completely unknown universe was a lot more than he was ever expecting to deal with.

She smiled once more as she closed the door and walked back onto the bridge, smiling while heading over to the co-pilots position at the helm and tapped Campbell lightly on the shoulder to get her attention,

"He's finally sleeping, make sure that he's not disturbed for the next few hours at least."

Campbell nodded gratefully as she complied with the order that she had just received.

Dvorak knew that both the young ensign she was next to and Hudson were close, and was mildly jealous towards the young ensign, not that she would ever admit it to anyone. Yet she did make a mental note to have a very long talk with Hudson about his relationship with the ensign just so that she knew where she stood with him.

She still secretly wished that the human commander had been born as a Lantean, then so many things would have been so much easier.

After their time that they had spent during the disruptor war, she had spent a full year as a guest of the Imperial High command, being analysed and scrutinized before they had finally allowed her to re-join the fleet on active duty, but she now had a chaperone in the form of that pompous ass of an executor Granger from the Imperial intelligence division.

The complications that she had suffered during that time as a guest of High Command hadn't helped, and thinking back on it now wasn't any easier. She wished that she could talk to Kira about what had happened, but she also knew that he would never understand.

Silently she circled around the damaged bridge, while the repair crew worked, making notes on her PADD as to the repair status of the different sections of the ship as she returned to her place at the situation table where she began to go through the latest reports which had accumulated and she needed to pass on to Hudson.

-{[]}-

Murdoch stared dispassionately at the sub-space drive core which took up all three levels of main engineering. The former chief engineer, lieutenant colonel Jeff Tracy, had been having an almost romantic relationship with the systems that made up the propulsion and energy production for the Archangel, but Murdoch couldn't understand how the man could have gotten so attached to the machines.

He turned away from the core as a senior chief petty officer came up to him carrying a PADD which had the latest status reports relating to the on-going repairs.

"Major, we've managed to get almost everything ready for a restart of both all reflex reactors and the drive core, we just need to run another series of stress tests on the anti-proton injectors and a few of reactor three's housing components."

"That's excellent work chief. How soon do you think that it will be until we can attempt the restart sequence?" Murdoch asked although he had already worked out the answer, but he felt that the chief had a lot of potential, so he tried to push him a little with every assignment.

"I'd say a few hours, six at the most sir."

"I believe that is an accurate assessment. I shall inform the commander that due to the efforts of you and your team we will be able to reactivate the main power systems before my original estimate. Carry on chief."

The chief petty officer smiled, accepting that it was as close to a compliment that he would get, as he turned to re-join his engineering team and grateful for the praise and glad to be doing something to help him to take his mind off of their current predicament.

-{[]}-

_Combat date 56477.5, commander Kira Hudson recording._

_It has been five days since our fight with the Prometheans in orbit of Lantea and our subsequent trans-dimensional jump and we are only now planning to commence a restart of our main power grid, though major Murdoch, the senior most engineer left, told me that it would take at least a full standard week before he and his engineering teams would be able to restart the mains, they appear to have performed a miracle as they have managed to get both the sub-space drive core and all eight of the reflex reactors back on-line a full two days ahead of schedule, and not a moment too soon as I think that everyone with the exception of specialist Osmond are sick to death of eating emergency field rations, since I've had to limit the use of the synthesizers and nano-lathes for the production of parts relating to repairing the ship while we have been surviving on the H 3 fuel cells and fusion generators._

_Thankfully both the destroid detachment and the air wing was relatively unaffected by either the battle with the Prometheans or the trans-dimensional jump so we have been scouting out the surrounding area with our ESINTs and ESINT equipped Thunderbolt fighters._

_It would appear however that we will be able to find useable resources nearby, most notable on the lifeless forms of both Lantea Alpha and Beta. Therefore I plan to order the ship cleaned and funerals to be held, then carry out a massive mining operation to fill cargo decks three, four and seven with raw materials._

_At present comm-scan has been unable to detect any form of sub-space signals on any channel of frequency that is common, well common to home, which has would seem to suggest that the locals of this universe use a completely different form of faster-than-light communications._

_One of our recon missions to a nearby system has detected several ships entering and exiting FTL from a type of sub-space rift which opens into a sub-dimension of sub-space which we suspect the locals use to achieve FTL speeds._

_The ships coming out of this 'hyperspace' as the pilots have begun to call it have been extremely strange. On the one hand the obviously have a form of FTL travel, but in normal space the ships we have observed are slow moving pyramids. We have seen several of these ships which range in size from a little larger than the Archangel's own Argo class multi-purpose transports up to something as large as the Great Pyramid of Giza, and yet from what we have seen they would appear to lack any form of shielding system or weapons but they do have an unusually large amount of heavy armour, but it is very primitive._

_The Archangel's own ablative armour would seem to be light-years ahead of what we have observed, and what we suspect that the local military forces may have also._

_Another of our recon teams have also detected a series of ruins on a planet in the next system over with a strange metallic ring which is capable of creating a completely stable wormhole within the gravity well of a planetary body._

_The limited number of scientist we have aboard are chomping at the bit to take an Argo down to the surface of the planet to investigate the device, but I have ordered them to wait until the ship is in a more presentable and battle ready condition._

_A few hours ago a clearly military ship came out of the locals form of FTL, again it was a pyramid shaped craft about half the size of the Archangel but it was even less efficient than a first generation ARMD class space carrier from before space war one, yet the energy readings it was generating are a cause for concern given our current condition, as a few well-placed shots would be a problem for us, yet given our almost completely comically lack of manoeuvrability at present I suspect that it would take ten to twenty ships of a similar type to even be a concern to us._

_Judging by the scans we made of the ship it would appear that these ships are constructed more along the lines of inflicting massive amounts of orbital bombardment than for actual capital ship engagements. Though if they have ships which are bigger and better equipped, then things could be interesting._

_Unfortunately, medical has reported that admiral Cutter and the others that are in critical condition have made no improvement and now I have to make a horrible choice. Allow them to slowly slip away over the next month, or give the go ahead to allow doctor Morse to give the admiral an injection which would allow him to be active and back in command, but it would mean that he will be dead within two weeks._

_I know what I would want to be done, so I hope that he agrees with my decision and I pray to whatever god or gods that exist that I am someday able to come to terms with what I have done._

-{[]}-

Cutter slowly opened his eyes, blinking rapidly at the soft lighting in the main ward of sickbay.

"Admiral, welcome back to the land of the living."

Slowly he turned his head and saw Hudson standing next to doctors Morse and Smith, that wasn't a good sign.

"Report commander." Asked Cutter with a slightly crusty voice.

Hudson handed over a PADD and gave the admiral a brief summary, talking with a slow and deliberately steady speech.

"Sir, just over two hundred of the ships compliment have died, with another thirty still in ICU. We have massive structural damage to all sectors of the ship which has resulted in main power being off-line for the last five days. The ships destroid detachment and air wing are in an acceptable condition with the exception for one of the Argo transports, which broke free of its docking cradle. I've had the CAG launch the ESINT's and several ESINT equipped Thunderbolts to perform a recon in force of our location with ghost fighters for support. We currently have seventy-five Imperial survivors on board and are being integrated into the crew to assist in none critical locations. Comm-scan has detected no ships, friendly or otherwise in the local system as we appear to be in a parallel dimension."

"Very good command…" Cutter dropped the PADD which he had been handed by Hudson and stared at him as if he was joking. "What did you just say commander?"

"Sir, we appear to be in a universe with a completely different quantum signature to our own."

"Macross fleet command?"

"Negative sir, we've had no communication on any known sub-space channel, except for that of our recon teams. As a precaution I've had the ships IFF and transponder deactivated. We have however detected several vessels in a nearby system, and we believe that the locals use a different form of communication to communicate with one another, however I have avoided initiating first contact until the ship was in a more presentable condition."

"That bad?"

"Worse."

Cutter sank back onto the bio-bed, the little amount of energy that he had managed to regain was draining from him fast.

"Ok, I'll read through your reports and then get back to you in an hour."

"Yes sir. Also doctors Morse and Smith have something which you need to hear, I'll leave now and when I return I will accept whatever punishment you decide."

"Very well commander, I'll let you get back to fixing the ship, get us ready as soon as you can."

Cutter watched as Hudson walked out of the sickbay, noticing how he was practically running from the medical centre of the ship, before turning to face the doctors that somehow magical started to pull a medical scanner from nowhere.

"So doctors what was so important that it has made the head of the ships security run like a scared recruit in their first fire-fight?"

-{[]}-

In a nearby star system, ensign Kelly 'Cobra' Kaplan looked down at the mission timer on the controls of her ESINT equipped Thunderbolt mark seven-B once more. They still had another five hours left for this patrol in this individual star system.

Since arriving in the system the pilots of Nemesis flight of Phoenix squadron had viewed the locals coming into the system via what the ships egg-heads where calling 'hyperspace'. The orders for Nemesis flight and the other ESINT flights, Dominion and Normandy, had changed from simple resource surveys and mineral scans, to passive long-ranged sweeps.

Commander Hudson had decided that it was safer to conduct these types of scans so that they could avoid any possible contact with any of the locals until they had the Archangel up to a decent level of both combat readiness and appearance.

"How we doing EA?"

EA, or specialist Ellen Anders, looked up from the scanner in the back of Cobra's seat before answering.

"Oh it's fascinating," she said in a sarcastic tone, "Twenty particles of space dust per cubic meter, fifty-two ultra-violet spikes, seven planets, four of them are gas giants, a regular type class D planetoid and a class three comet. The inner two planets are too close to the systems star to be any real candidate for mining at present that we couldn't gain via the synthesizers anyway."

"Ok, plus there's no 'stargate' anywhere in the system so we can assume that locals don't visit here all that often."

No sooner had Kaplan started this fact than the enhanced scanners of the ESINT pack attached to the Thunderbolt mark seven-B detected a large ship jumping into the system.

"Me and my big mouth, begin scans."

"Copy, running passive scans now."

The two waited for a few seconds as the scanners on the ESINT equipped Thunderbolt seven-B discreetly scanned the unknown contact, processed and displayed the data on their displays.

"Ok the contact would appear to be slightly larger than some of the bigger pyramid ships. I'm seeing over three dozen capital scale weapons."

"That is just so typical of the local ships which we've seen, they have a strange mix of tech, FTL capable but at sub-light speeds, they're no better than a megaton class destroyer from before space war one. I'm no expert but I'd bet that even an old Tri-Star destroyer would be able to handle one of these pyramid ships one-on-one with ease." Replied Anders.

"Maybe…" The console beeped again, "Hello, what's this."

They watched as a massive ship de-cloaked. It moved slowly towards the first in a slow and menacing fashion. After about three minutes they detected a massive energy build up followed by a single energy blast which caused the first ship to explode completely.

"DECULTURE!" Shouted Kaplan as she looked at the energy readings, "That thin is massive. Going by these readings that thing is about the size of Nupetiet-Vergnitzs class fleet command ship. The energy reading from that one shot alone was equal to a first generation guided beam cannon. Yet we have no idea if that was a full power shot or not, but it is massively beyond anything that we've seen so far."

"Looks like we've just seen the biggest and baddest guys on the block."

"I hope so, and I hope that they are friendly otherwise we are going to have a Promethean sized problem."

They continued to watch as the massive ship appeared to scan the wreckage of the slowly expanding debris field before tractoring in a small section of it and jumping away into hyperspace.

"Ok, activate all systems and scanners and let's see what we can learn about that weapon then we'll finish up our survey and return to the barn early. Something tells me that the commander is sure as hell not going to like this one little bit."


	4. Chapter 04: State of the Union

**Chapter 04: State of the Union**

Admiral Cutter watched as the acting senior staff, with the exception of major O'Neill who was out on patrol, filtered into the main observation lounge just off the bridge and sat down around the same table that Hudson had used only three days before.

While he wasn't exactly comfortable with an imperial officer being involved with the daily business for the ship but he trusted Hudson's judgement and understood it was required given their current situation.

"Alright let's get started." He said as he turned to face Hudson. "First, as of this date I am issuing a field promotion to commander Hudson to the rank of commodore. Once my time is up I have pre-set the computer to increase his security clearance to change from Alpha-Three to Alpha-One. This will allow him access to all the data that he will need to fully command a Macross Fleet battlefortress, including all of the classified files of a Macross Fleet admiral."

Hudson didn't look too happy to hear this, but he understood that it had to be done.

"As for how you have all handled things since the battle, I can only say that I can grateful to have such a brave and courageous crew." He paused taking a sip of water as he turned to look at sub-commander Dvorak, "and I'm sure that if Atriums was here, he would say the same, sub-commander."

Dvorak smiled slightly, although it was a sad smile brought on by the memories of her now dead commander and other ship mates from the Blood Haze.

"Now how are the repairs proceeding?"

"The reflex reactors and the sub-space drive core have been successfully reactivated, however we will only be able to travel at hyper four point nine for the moment. Without a complete level one dry dock overhaul I do not believe we can risk the ship going any faster." Said major Murdoch.

Cutter nodded at him. "Excellent major, you and your engineering teams have gone beyond the call, well done. Next, what's the situation in the local space?"

"Sir, the Lantea system and the three nearby star-systems have no real evidence of habitation," Stated ensign Campbell, who had taken over the duties of ship board operations at Hudson's request. "The very limited members of the ships science staff have managed to come up with an initial analysis of the 'stargate', as they have taken to calling the device found by one of the recon flights, along with one on the local's FTL. Those two reports have been forwarded to both you and commodore Hudson for your future review."

"Ok, defensive status?"

Hudson grunted as Welsh started to speak. "Or lack thereof. Shields are completely shot, pin-point is available for sector two Delta, basically the flight deck of armour two, we will be lucky if we can get either system back on-line without a twelve month dry-dock, as it stands we can't repair them to any real status."

"What about the structural integrity fields?" asked a very nervous Campbell.

"The SIF grids are on a separate system which, while damaged is working within acceptable parameters." Stated Murdoch as it was more of an engineering question then a tactical and security question.

"Ok, main shields and PPB's are out," Confirmed Cutter, "What about the armour, weapons, Destroid and Air wings?"

"Gottfried's came back on-line with the restoration of main power. We are basically out of torpedoes, we've maybe a dozen Korinthos missiles, Neidhart anti-battle station torpedoes and a handful of those new Trans-phasic drones. All the weapons for both the destroids and the air-wing are full but that's it for now. Given some time we could siphon off some anti-protons from the reserves to replace the used Korinthos missiles, since we would need a fleet station or a base of operations to replace the Neidhardt's and the Trans-phasic drones, but until we have an idea of how long we are going to be stuck here I would highly recommend against doing that, sir."

Cutter looked at Hudson and shared a brief look of concern. "Very well, but only once we are underway again then siphon of enough anti-protons to bring us back up to fifty percent status just to be safe."

"Aye sir. As for the armour system we should be able to fully deploy it right now, but given the damage to the outer hull, my engineering team and both major Sisko's MACO's and lieutenant Welsh's security teams suggest that we will have about sixty to seventy-five percent effectiveness."

"How soon could it be brought up to full-power?" Asked Dvorak.

Welsh shook her head. "Like I said sub-commander, without access to a dry-dock, I'd estimate a year maybe two and even then it would only be up to eighty percent at best."

"So we either need to find a safe harbour or a repair dock…" Cutter deliberately leaving the sentence open to see what these junior officers whom had been thrust into a situation that even he had no idea how to deal with it.

"The asteroid field." Said Campbell after a few moments which caused everyone in the room to look at her, which made her start to sink into her chair until she caught sight of Hudson to continue.

"Well the asteroid field in this system is loaded with enough Trinium and other key materials to rebuild the ship from scratch, plus several of them look large enough for us to, in theory at least, be able to mine out and convert into a small base and dry-dock."

Welsh smiled at the younger woman's suggestion. "Crafty, and the concept goes back to the early days of the Macross Fleet. By hollowing out one of the mid to large sized asteroids we gain a hidden base plus the field is far enough out from the planets that it would be highly unlikely that we would be spotted by any passing ships."

"Crafty indeed, ensign are you're sure you're not from Macross Fleet intelligence or something?" Asked Dvorak in a highly impressed and joking manor.

"Indeed," Stated Murdoch, trying hard not to look at the Imperial officer whom was sitting across from him. "If we are to be stranded her for any significant time frame, it would allow us the time too not only rebuild the ship but also replace our lost weapons, and if we are here for an extended time frame it would allow us to consider building a few additional support ships."

"Are you sure that's wise sir?" Asked ensign Cochrane, who had until now been totally silent. "We barely have enough crew to man the Archangel at the minute, and you are thinking about building support vessels!"

"Actually ensign, the type two SDF class battlefortress requires a minimum of 15,000 personal to operate at an acceptable level of efficiency. Given that, including our 'guests', we currently have 29,845 crew members on the ship, we could potentially field one or two smaller classes of vessels, say a Sabre tactical scout or a Charon class light assault ship, and suffer only a two percent loss in crew efficiency while expanding our own defensive abilities."

"Well that is something to consider at a later date," Stated Cutter in an attempt to get the conference back on track, "for now we will scan the asteroid field to find a suitable candidate for initial mining and later conversion into a base. For now we need to discuss the local ships and establish a set of rules relating to first contact."

"Will the SD-001 still be in effect?" Asked Welsh.

Cutter looked over at Hudson before answering. "I can't say if it should or not be applied, as I feel that it will need to be need to be discussed on a case by case basis by commodore Hudson and the rest of you. I will however state that it should be used as it was during the time of Admiral Maximilian Jenius in that it should only be used as a guide line."

Cutter watched as the others all looked over at Hudson who withered slightly under their gaze. Cutter knew that Hudson was completely un-ready and un-willing to be his new XO, as it was a big difference between a solo-command of an Izumo class mid-range battleship to solo-command of an SDF type two class battlefortress stranded in a totally different dimension.

He just hoped that he had the time left to try and prepare the young officer for the burden he would soon have to carry.

"Now let's have an overview of the local's."

Everyone turned to face the main display viewscreen at the back of the room as Welsh activated it with the analysis that she, Cochrane and major O'Neill had created.

"Most ships, which we have observed are while equal to or larger than the Great Pyramids of Giza they are extremely primitive. Energy readings from the largest are comparable to first or second generation ARMD class carriers at best."

"So they are not much of a threat to us then?" asked Dvorak.

Welsh shook her head. "Theoretically if they were able to catch us with shields, PPB's and armour down and could carry out an Alpha Strike with odds of ten to one. If we have the shields and PPB's active it would target practice at best, with the armour deployed a waste of their time at worse. Though, we have to assume that any of their military ships must rate a lot higher up the tech scale, though without a scan of any such vessels we can only make a series of educated guesses about any such craft."

"And the ship that Nemesis flight spotted?" Asked Campbell as she tried not to shiver as the video of the largest ship they had seen so far played on the screen.

"It's energy readings when it de-clocked and fired a shot that was equal to a first generation guided beam cannon, but we believe that was a low level shot as we would not use a full powered Gottfried shot in a similar situation."

"So what would you say that the upper range of its weapons could be?" Asked Cutter.

"Not good sir, it is comparable to our own Gottfried's at best."

"That's not good. So what else do we know about that ship?" Asked Dvorak.

Welsh nodded to Cochrane, to allow the young ensign to take over the briefing.

"Not much as Nemesis flight was only using their passive scanners, as per the sub-commanders orders. What we do know is that it was around the size of a Gorg Bodolzza type Nupetiet-Vergnitzs class fleet command ship and is just as well armed."

"The super visionary army?" Asked Hudson which caused everyone in the room to tense up.

"Similar sir, but different at the same time. Unfortunately we did determine two things which should have us concerned."

"Only two?" Muttered captain John 'Marauder' Andrews the commander of Phoenix Thunderbolt squadron and major O'Neill's air group executive officer.

"One, the ships main weapon appears to be identical to that of the robotic planet killer that was encountered by the ESMF Constellation just over a century ago. However if the readings were correct, then the second thing is more disturbing as both ships where crewed by humans."

There were a few gasps as the senior staff all tried to adjust and imagine humans crewing a ship the size of the Great Pyramid as everyone just stared at the screen in complete disbelief and shock.

"Great." Snarled executor Granger, who Dvorak had ordered to admit his true rank as an operative of the Imperial intelligence section. "Well isn't that just fracking great, we are in a dimension without Trojans, Zentradi, the Empire of Zodiac control but you Humans are her. Isn't this just Sanguinum Egregie!"

"So…"

"Battlestations! Battlestations set level two throughout the ship, admiral Cutter to the bridge, commander Hudson to the bridge. I say again Battlestations! Battlestations set level two throughout the ship. This is not a drill!"

Everyone scrambled out of their seats and filled out of the observation lounge, worried about the sounding of the alert and each hoping that it wasn't the ship that was spotted by Nemesis flight.

-{[]}-

Light-years away on board Earths very first and currently only interstellar capable space vessel, the united states air force X-303 Prometheus, the ships commanding officer colonel William Ronson exits a lift with the executive officer of the stargate programs flagship exploration team, SG1, major Samantha Carter while asking her a question about their next cool down location.

"So this star-system is different from others how?"

"Well sir that is what makes it so exciting." Responds Carter as the pair start walking down the corridor that leads to the ships bridge. "We don't know exactly."

"And this system just so happens to be the location of our next cool-down for the hyper-drive?"

"Yes sir, we will actually drop out on the outer edge of the system colonel. All I ask is two hours tops."

"If only to see the expression on your face first hand. The words 'kid' and 'candy store' spring to mind." Said Ronson with a smile on his face.

"I'll try to retain my composure sir." Says Carter doing her best impression of her SG1 team mate Daniel Jackson.

"Just keep in mind that our mission is to get this bird home in one piece." Says Ronson as the ships public-address system interrupts his conversation.

"Colonel Ronson, report to the bridge."

"Must be time." States Ronson as he allows Carter to pass, "After you major."

-{[]}-

"Report!" Cutter ordered as he sat down in his command chair and stared at the recently repaired main tactical screen.

"Sir, we've detected a hyperspace related event on the other side of the system." Stated the duty officer, captain Maria Hill, who was sitting at the flight operations station. "Ice Queen, Angel and Anime with Joker in an ESINT equipped 7B are moving to investigate with orders to hold at five light seconds from the event."

Cutter gave a subtle nod to the captain and turned to Hudson, who took a seat in the executive officers chair. "Good work Hill."

He turned to face lieutenant Welsh who was taking over the tactical station. "Activate the Gottfried cannons."

"Erm sir, only the main cannons are working. The ventral and ARMD cannons are still off-line, engineering reports that they should be back on-line by the end of tomorrow. I'd suggest that we move the destroids into their alcoves and bring the rest of the air wing to alert status."

"Make it so."

"I believe that I said that they should be on-line by eighteen hundred." Said Murdoch from the engineering sub-station.

Welsh pinched the bridge of her nose fighting the urge to reply.

Cutter and Hudson both shared a brief look of amusement, as Murdoch was well known to have railed up the late chief Brown with his typical Trojan completeness.

"Well one array will have to do then. Helm bring us out of orbit one quarter thrust."

"Aye sir, brake orbit one quarter trust." Said Newman from his post at the primary pilot's helm.

Slowly the fifteen hundred meter Archangel broke from orbit of the un-inhabitable dark side of Lantea Beta's sensor shadow and advanced towards the unknown contact that had just entered the system via FTL.

"Readings are starting to come in, sir."

"On screen." Ordered cutter as he took another sip of water from the canteen he had with him in the observation lounge.

The image that came in was fuzzy but it was clear that the ship was a warship.

"Sweet lord that things armed more than a Macross cannon!"

"It's length is one hundred ninety five meters, eighty meters high, and sixty-five meters high. Power readings are high but slowly dropping to similar levels to that of the other ships we've seen so far. Her crew compliment is one hundred fifty all human."

"Deploy the armour!" Ordered Hudson, causing Cutter to raise an eyebrow at the order. "Sir, if this is a typical example of the local humans military and they are this primitive then we can't let them see the ships name. I'd also recommend that we recall the C.A.P. and the drones at least until we can remove ESUN standard from all external surfaces."

Cutter nodded, it was a good idea and it would allow them to hide their true identity from the locals until they decided to become a larger part of the galactic community. "Make it so."

The unmistakable sound of the trans-phasic armour activating and covering the hull could be heard as it clunked into place.

"Sir, Angel and Anime's ESINT 7B have landed. The CAG will be landing within the next two minutes." Said Andrews from the flight operations station having relieved Hill from the post.

"Status of the unknown?" Asked Cutter.

"She's launched a small probe and is scanning the system. The probe is as primitive as the one sighted by Griffon flight and even without shields I doubt that it would be able to scan one of the Thunderbolts." Said Welsh from the tactical station.

"That ship that Nemesis flight sighted would wipe the floor with them." Muttered Campbell from the co-pilots post at the helm.

"Here's hoping that they don't know each other." Muttered Dvorak from the damage control station with Granger near-by.

Cutter coughed lightly which everyone present took as a sign to cut the chatter. "Alright people. Helm bring us towards them, but keep our acceleration below two hundred kph, even if it is really, really slow, it won't allow us to tip our hand just yet."

"Advance towards the contact, two hundred kph max, aye sir." Replied Newman.

Time crept along very slowly as the two ships inched towards each other, and although the Prometheus didn't know it but they were fast entering into a first contact situation.

"They've seen us admiral. She turning towards us very slowly." Stated Cochrane who stopped as his comm-scan console beeped to get his attention. "Incoming signal, I think."

"You think?" Asked Hudson raising an eyebrow in a fair approximation of Murdoch. "You mean that you're unsure ensign?"

"Yes sir, it would appear that the locals use a mix of tachyon particles and sub-space com-techniques, we are having a bit of trouble adapting the comm-system to accept the hybrid signal."

"Okay. Well then I think that it is time to play alien, using the forward running lights flash the first ten prime numbers. Then wait for a reply and transmit to them a standard first contact package on the on their frequency," Cutter said, "but for the love of god don't use standard use…" Started Cutter as he looked over at Hudson to answer, since he knew more about the current crew complaints make up than he did.

"Zentron sir, it'll be safe enough since all the crew can speak it if we are stuck here for any length of time, and if we need an ambassador as well."

Cutter nodded for Cochrane to do so and smiled at Hudson. The newly minted commodore was a solid tactician and strategist, and it seemed that he was beginning to apply that process to the command of an SDF class battlefortress. Now if only he could do it without fear of his Varauta heritage.

Cutter also wondered how the rest of the crew would react to him once they learnt about the commodores origins and what he had stored within hanger zeta one seven nine.

-{[]}-

"Sir, the hyper-drive engines are at maximum safe temperature." Said major Erin Grant from the navigation station just in front and to the right of colonel Ronson's command chair as both he and major Carter walked onto the bridge.

"Shut them down major Grant and begin cool down procedures."

"Yes sir. Dropping out of hyperspace and venting the drive compartment."

"Major Carter," Says Ronson as he turns to face SG1's resident scientist while the ship drops out of hyperspace. "What's our progress?"

"Well sir, we covered a little over fifty-one light-years in that last leg, and considering that the hyper-drive we're using was removed from a captured Alkesh, a ship which is one-tenth the size of this, I'd say that's actually pretty good going." Says Carter as she looks at the navigational log on her tablet, while she lunched the first of the recon drones that she, Siler and Walter had designed to explore any system that the SGC sent the Prometheus too.

"So only five more of these little pit-stops and where home." Said Ronson knowing full well that there was a small army of scientist and SGC technicians just waiting to get their hands on the ship and all the data that was in her navigational computers.

"Colonel, a bogey just appeared on our scanners. It's coming out of the sensor shadow of one of the twin planets." Stated Grant after examining the readings as they were displayed on her monitor.

"Can you identify the contact?"

"Negative sir." Said Grant as Carter moved to one of the forward scanner stations next to the view port. "It's closing on us quickly though."

"Sound general quarters!" Ordered Ronson deciding to err on the better side of curation.

All across the ship the combat klaxon sounded and the lighting dimmed as power was diverted to the defensive systems.

"Contact is now at two thousand kilometres."

"Raise shields and arm all weapons. How long until we can return to hyperspace." Asked Ronson after ordering the shields to be raised while catching sight of the ship approaching them.

"Contact is now at nine hundred kilometres and slowing down sir."

"The drive needs at minimum two hours to cool before we can even attempt another jump." Responded Carter without even needing to check the engineering displays. "If we attempt to use it before it has cooled down we run the very high risk of it overloading and destroying the ship."

"Colonel, I'm getting an unusual reading from the contact." Says the sensor operator at the station which Carter had moved next to.

"We're being scanned."

"Major Grant, activate the ship to ship communications on a wide frequency configuration, and transmit the first contact package I want to talk to them."

Nodding the major set about configuring the system for ship-to-ship communications on a wide frequency range. After about a minute or so she nodded to Ronson. "Go ahead sir."

"This is colonel William Ronson, commander of the Tau'ri battle cruiser Prometheus, please respond." Stated Ronson. "If you can hear me, we have sent you a data package containing peaceful greeting from the people of Earth."

"Contact is now at four hundred kilometres and holding sir."

"Sir visual sensors are showing a bright green light coming from the unknown ship sir." Stated Carter as she looked over the shoulder of the sensor technician. "It's the first ten prime numbers I think?"

"Well it's a response of sorts." Says Ronson as he released the small breath that he hadn't even realised that he had been holding. "Okay. It looks like they have received our message and data packet but might need some time to translate it into their language, so they have used the universal language in an attempt to open up a dialogue."

"Sir, we have an incoming signal." Reports Grant as she listens to the response from the unknown ship and looking at the communications screen in front of her. "They have transmitted a data packet of their own on the same frequency we used, it looks like our own first contact packet but I don't understand a word of it."

"Forward it to the language department and get them to work on it." Ordered Ronson as he looked out the viewport at the alien ship.

They had made first contact with another space faring species, and unlike the Goa'uld, this one had all the appearances of starting off on the right foot, and maybe they had found someone who was willing to help them to fight against the Goa'uld.

Now all they had to do was wait for one ship or the other to translate the others first contact package, that however could take hours and they still had to carry out the survey and search for the lost city that they were ordered to do whenever they had to drop-out of hyperspace to allow the hyper drive to cool down again.

Although due to the fact that they had yet to detect any signs of naquadah in the system so far it seemed very unlikely that the Ancients would build a city and not place a stargate for the to travel around the galaxy, but it might be a good place for an off-world base if they could get a gate to one of the planets in the system.

That is if these new comers didn't have a previous claim to the system that is, thought Ronson.

-{[]}-

"Commodore Hudson sir, long-range scans have detected something entering the system."

Hudson cursed slightly under his breath, why was it that something was always picked up on the long-range scanners whenever he was drinking his raktajino. Slowly he turned to face the MACO non-comm who was currently manning the main comm-scan station on the bridge.

"What kind of 'thing' corporal?"

The corporal shook his head. "I don't know sir. It appears that the scanner are having a hard time locking it down but it's big, I'd say it's about the size of a Thurvel-Salan class battleship, but due to the stealth field its putting out and the distance are making it tricky to detect, although it is closing but it is still well outside the sensor range for the Prometheus at present."

Hudson placed his cup of the high powered Zentron coffee down and activated the small view screen built into his chair and scrutinized the very limited sensor data they had on the battleship sized contact. It looked slightly smaller than the Thurvel-Salan class and wouldn't pose much of a threat, but the fact that it was attempting to remain undiscovered set it as an automatic threat and a concern. "Alright keep an eye on it."

"Understood sir. Designating the contact as bogey one and setting it as a level two threat at this time."

Hudson turned back to look at the Prometheus, it had launched a few more of their low powered recon drones, though what they were searching for eluded him, and even Cochrane's limited science team where stumped, but they had suggested that they were looking for the strange element used to power their hyper-drive and the stargate in any system which was unclaimed and showed potential for colonization or mining.

Several of the senior staff had suggested to Cutter and Hudson that they lay claim to the Lantean system since it had almost everything they needed, and it seemed to be unused by the local races of this galaxy.

Cutter had smiled and just said that it was up to commodore Hudson to make this decision and that he would only act as an advisor from now on.

The admiral had taken the sad news of his impending death gracefully and was grateful for the chance to be able to put as much of his personal affairs in order as possible and assist the newly minted commodore with his transition to the command of the Archangel, especially if they ended up being trapped in this universe for any great amount of time.

"Any response from the Prometheus?" Hudson asked as he stretched in the command chair.

"Negative sir. If I had to take a wild guess I'd bet that they are having a fair amount of trouble with Zentron." Hudson couldn't see sergeant Forge at the communication's station face, but he could tell from her voice the she was smiling. Since Zentron and Meltron were both a grammatical nightmare with six basic tense.

"I fell their pain. Well let's give them another two hours or so then send them a very basic message in standard text only saying that we've broken their language keys."

Hudson turned as he heard the entrance hatch opened to allow the delta shift access to the bridge being led by sub-commander Dvorak.

"I am here to relieve you." She said as she saluted Hudson as though she was still on board an Imperial cruiser.

Hudson stood up from the command chair before returning the salute, much to the confusion of the bridge crew and his own amusement. "I stand relieved sub-commander."

Dvorak smiled, thankful that he and some of the more senior staff where trying to help her and the rest of the survivors from the Blood Haze to adjust to Macross Fleet approaches, by allowing them to keep at least some of their own rules and traditions.

Hudson picked up his cup of raktajino and walked with the other bridge crew from gamma shift, and arrived at the hatch with the non-coms who had manned the tactical and flight operations stations.

"Why did you do that sir." Asked Forge.

"It's a long story Sasha. I'll tell you over a drink in the little white dragon."

"Aye sir." Hudson turned to face gunnery sergeant Sasha Forge, one of the MACO detachment that had been transferred over to ships security, when he noticed that Dvorak was walking over to the helms co-pilots station.

"Ensign Campbell, could I talk to you in private please."

Hudson never heard what the answer was as the hatch closed. "Deculture!" he muttered to himself, now worrying about just what they were going to share with each other. "This is not going to end well at all."

-{[]}-

Ronson looked at the display screen off to the left of his command chair on the bridge of the Prometheus, which was displaying an image of a standard Goa'uld Ha'tak next to that of the unknown ship once again. Neither ship had moved so much as an inch in the five hours since the initial contact, and some of the crew were starting to get a little nervous.

While the alien ship was by all appearances could with stand the Goa'uld inspired plasma cannons mounted to the Prometheus, the intermittent energy readings and the ease with which it carried out even the simplest of course corrections to match the Prometheus was a sign that it would be able to run rings around the Earth built starship.

"How are the techs coming?" Asked Ronson as he took a sip of his coffee, while looking over to the senior master sergeant Ambrose was who shook her head.

"Not good, they report that they are having real trouble and have actively been heard wishing that doctor Jackson was here. It would appear that these people use at least three basic grammatical tenses possibly even five."

"Five?" Muttered captain Jennings from a post at the plot table. "That's more than the Goa'uld use. This could take weeks to decode, even if doctor Jackson was here, why can't everyone do this the correct way."

Ronson looked at his executive officer, once again wondering how a man like that had made it through the SGC psych screening with his earth centric views were worrying and reminded him of that rouge element that had tried to discredit the SGC a few years ago, which was Ronson was seriously considering stepping down and taking that posting at Area 51 when they returned to Earth.

"We have however discovered that they use an atmosphere almost identical to ours." Said Ambrose, in an attempt to placate her superior officer. "Eighty one point nine percent oxygen, fourteen point eight five percent CO 2, I believe that it would be possible to visit their ship once we have sorted out the small problem of the language barriers."

"I'd bet that it stinks worse than the sewers under New York over there." Muttered Jennings as he walked away from the plot table towards the engineering station on the bridge.

"Well, while we are sitting here, our small recon probes have been carrying out the scans of this system." Ronson said as he moved to the science station to be joined by major Carter.

"The twin planets have both suffered an extinction level event at some time within the last one hundred million years, yet the contaminate matter within the their atmospheres would indicate that they should be suitable for colonization within the next ten thousand years or so, wouldn't you agree master sergeant?"

"Yes ma'am, maybe sooner if we were to use a dome like structure." Answered Ambrose. "There are a significant number of indicators for useful minerals in the system, so a future mining effort by the SGC might be worth undertaking, but the lack of a stargate might make it an unlikely venture at this time." She paused as she turned to face both Ronson and Carter. "However, if this is the edge of their space, it might make sense to harvest a stargate from another system and place it here and share the custody of it with this race, it would be a way for the SGC to, potentially, have open access to their culture and technology markets."

Ronson smiled, glad to see that at least some of his crew were still open to learning from the other races in the galaxy. He turned as the hatch opened and a small group of crew entered the bridge, "Shift change, alright alpha shift are to hand over their posts. All senior officers are to get some food and sleep, that includes you major." He said looking at Carter. "But stay prepared as we are still in a first contact situation."

As one all of the bridge crew, officers and NCO's alike, including major Carter, moved towards the hatchway, all that is except captain Jennings, glade that their shift was over.

As the hatch way sealed again Jennings walked over to the lieutenant who was now manning the defence and primary sensor station. "Franks, do you think that you might be able to get a clear scan of that other ship to get us a more detailed scan of the interior?" he asked quietly.

Lieutenant Franks look over the readings then tried unsuccessfully to hide a small smile. "I believe it could be done, if we focused all of the sensors onto a small section of their hull while firing the main gun at that same spot. Where that close that we wouldn't even need to use the targeting systems."

Jennings nodded and leaned into whisper quietly, so that none of the other crew could over hear him. "You should make it look like a 'malfunction', you know how 'uneducated' major Carter and the colonel are about other races."

"Understood."


	5. Chapter 05: Filling in the Blanks

**Chapter 05: Filling in the Blanks**

Campbell followed the Imperial officer, whom for the moment, was her superior officer into the main observation lounge just behind the bridge. Dvorak took a seat near the centre of the table as did Campbell but in the opposite side of the table.

"Now Meer may I call you Meer? If I may I would like to ask you a few questions, but feel free not to answer or to tell me to get lost if I am prying too much." Campbell nodded in acceptance while Dvorak asked the one question that she needed an answer to. "Ok I would like to know what is the nature of your relationship with commodore Hudson?"

Meer knew that this sort of question was bound to be asked by the sub-commander, since she knew a little of the history between the sub-commander and the commodore, but she still didn't feel overly comfortable sitting here one-to-one with the imperial woman.

"He's my mentor almost like a big brother nothing more." She waited a few moments to see how Dvorak would react. "As you know, when things were going extremely bad for Macross Fleet command against the Disruptors, fleet command drafted all of the fourth and fifth year cadets at both the Robotech academy and the MACO combat school into active service and assigned to the core systems on older Minerva class battlecruisers and a few of the first generation Tri-Star destroyers for the patrols, thus freeing up our heavy hitters for the frontlines. Again, as you know Kira, I mean the commodore, was assigned to a Tri-Star destroyer in the Beta Orion sector and became trapped behind enemy lines when his ship was destroyed by the Disruptors."

"This I am aware of young one as I was there."

Campbell sunk a little in embarrassment before straightening back up. "Yes ma'am, you were however you wanted to know so please let me tell the story my way."

Dvorak smiled and bowed her head conceding the point, and Campbell relaxed a little bit more when she saw this.

"Well, after the war all of the surviving cadets returned to the academy and combat school, and as most of them had been spared anything more that the occasional pirate raid or civilian ship with engine trouble, so they had no real problems settling back in, kira however… struggled."

"I arrived at the Robotech academy the following semester but my reason for joining wasn't for exploration but revenge. My sister had been killed when Babylon II was attacked in a raid during the attack on the Beta Orion sector. I signed up for the Macross Fleet right after that but was only able to enter the academy after the war, and at that time I was a very quiet person not to mention a very frightened young lady."

"One of the instructors decided that it would be a good idea if the returning cadets whom where having… trouble should be paired with the new cadets that were struggling. The thinking was that it might help both parties, so I was paired with Kira, though as you can imagine it didn't exactly go well at first."

Dvorak tried, completely not to choke on her glass of water from which she had just taken a sip as she started to laugh. "Yes, you and the commodore don't exactly seem to be a logical choice."

"Yes, well to say that it was a galactic understatement at first would be true, ma'am, but we helped each other a lot throughout that year. And no, I never slept with him, even though we we're close and we discussed pretty much everything else, we never even kissed. Are you happy ma'am."

Dvorak suddenly realised that this young, and nervous human, had somehow managed to turn the tables on her. It was at times such as this, and her suggestion during the last briefing session, that Hudson had been a very good influence on her.

"I am neither happy nor sad by what you have just told me, I was merely curious as to your relationship with the commodore was. If we are to be stuck within this universe, then I need to know who you are, and while I trust his judgement, I would much rather decide for myself what your abilities and skills are if we are to work well together."

"If you say so sub-commander." Campbell said with a very slight, almost predatory, smile on her lips as she watched the imperial officer.

She found that it was easy to read her, as many of her personal mannerisms and sub-conscious gestures where the same as those of Hudson, and she knew a lot about her from the stories of her adventures with Hudson and doctor Morse during their time trapped behind enemy lines in the Beta Orion sector.

"Is there anything else that you would like to know about me or my 'relationship' with commodore Hudson?"

"No that shall be all, thank-you ensign you may return to your post."

Campbell stood up and started to leave the observation lounge, but stopped just before she reached the door and looked back over at Dvorak. "Ma'am, do you mind if I ask you a question?"

Dvorak nodded her agreement for the younger woman to ask her question.

"Do you love him?" Campbell never got an answer, but just smiled to herself as she left the Imperial officer staring at her with a look of anger and confused shook as the door closed behind her.

-{[]}-

"End recording." Cutter had after five hours finished recording all of the messages which he needed to leave. "Computer set last message to be delivered in forty-eight hours with holo-program Cutter Delta one alpha." The computer beeped in response.

Cutter looked around the flag suite at the books and paintings he kept here. He had already decided that he would turn all of it over to Hudson in the hope that the Hudson would learn as much from them as he had himself.

He stood up and walked around his desk he had been sat behind until he was standing in front of his favourite painting, it was one he had done himself of an older SDF 1 battlefortress floating off the coast of New Alexandria city, while underneath was a copy of the original plaque from the first ship to carry the name Archangel.

While other ships had famous quotes or sayings like the ESMF Macross 'Do or do not… there is no try." All the ships, submarines and spacecraft to bear the name Archangel all had the simple phrase, 'Victory is life so fires of hell beware.'

Cutter laughed at just how true that motto had sadly become for this ship, but he knew that whatever the future might hold for the ship, those who sailed in her would look after each other.

The Archangel had survived the Collective, the Disruptors, the Zodiac war and the Prometheans. Hell it had even survived a dimensional jump to a totally alien quantum universe.

"Bridge to Admiral Cutter."

Cutter sighed as he turned back to his desk and touched the comm-panel built into his desk. "This is Cutter, go ahead."

"This is lieutenant Havaris, we have something happening with the Prometheus that I warrants your attention, sir."

Cutter frowned, he was curious but unsure as to how a simple, though well-armed little ship, could pose a challenge to the Archangel. He turned and exited his flag-suite and back onto the still under repair bridge, noticing that the young ensign Campbell was exiting the observation lounge.

"Report." Ordered Cutter as he took a seat in his command chair.

"Sir, we're getting a slow but steady build-up of energy in what we believe to be their main weapons system." Said Havaris from the tactical station, as an engineer used the time tested method to get a console working after just fixing it of banging it hard with his fist.

"Threat analysis?"

Havaris giggled before she regained her composure. "Sir it's minimal at best. Even with all the damage to the armour system and outer hull, I think that it would take at least a minute of uninterrupted fire, without us even attempting to evade, for that plasma pop-gun of theirs to pierce the armour." She reported as Dvorak returned to the bridge from the observation lounge and took a seat next to Cutter.

"So suggestions on how to respond?" Cutter asked as he watched Dvorak stare daggers into the back of Campbell's head.

"Sir, Dominion flight is waiting at the edge of the system." Stated Campbell who had been looking over the data for the flight-operations currently out on her console of the co-pilots seat. "We could have them fold in and carryout a combat landing."

"Interesting." Cutter said, thinking back to her suggestion during the briefing earlier in a new light, while he looked across to Dvorak.

Shocked, Dvorak blinking several times before recovering, and found herself to smile since it was an interesting idea and was one she herself would have suggested also, and while she was still angry at the young woman for her earlier question session, she could not and would not deny that the woman had a spark of potential. "Are you sure that you're not at least part Lantean ensign? It is a highly effective exercise in terror without us having to display any real power on our part."

Cutter chuckled softly. "That's not exactly how I would have said it, but it is accurate all the same." He turned so that he was facing Campbell again. "Ensign since this is your idea transmit the orders to Dominion flight. Lieutenant Havaris, let the deck crew of ARMD two know that we are going to carry out combat landings for Dominion flight."

Both officers nodded and went about their assigned tasks. Cutter smiled as he watched the crew get to work when he had suddenly had an idea. "Lieutenant Keys, once Dominion flight is secure, move us 100 meters off the Prometheus' bow and match their speed with the reverse thrusters."

"Should I use the thrusters to move us into position sir?" Asked Keys.

"Negative, full impulse if you please Ms Keys and Campbell, let's just show them just how out-classed the truly are."

"Aye sir."

Dvorak leaned over the central control panel to whisper to Cutter directly. "Devious admiral and it's an effective demonstration of power."

"Macross fleet command aims to please sub-commander." He whispered back, "Plus it saves us using the Gottfried's till we absolutely have too."

"I see now why Prefectus Atriums thought so highly of you sir."

-{[]}-

"Captain Jennings, the systems are ready." Stated Franks cryptically.

Jennings merely nodded as he turned to face the display screen off to the left of the bridge. "Very well. Power up the main cannon to full." Jennings sneered at the alien ship and how it was just sitting there waiting as of it wanted to be squashed like a bug by the Prometheus.

"It's powered up sir."

"Target the location from which that point of light was seen flashing."

"Aye…" Started Franks.

"Collision Alert!" Announced the airman at the forward sensor station.

"Report!"

"Sir, several ships have just appeared in our flight path!"

"All engines back full!" Jennings all but screamed as he turned to face Franks. "Where the hell did those ships come from?"

"Unknown sir. There was no warning, one second they were clear the next they were there."

"Display them on the screen." Jennings and those that could see the screen watched as the main screen switched from the display of the unknown ship the small group of ships, which looked slightly larger than a Russian SU-37 Flanker-F's as they shot towards the alien ship at an alarming rate of speed.

"My God! They are going to crash…" muttered someone from behind Jennings.

He never replied as everyone present watched in disbelief as the craft all flew over the top of their mother ship, before pulling an insanely high-g reverse thrust maneuver and slipped into a docking port on the side of the ship even as their armour pulled back to reveal a long runway like landing deck and docking port.

They watched in stunned shock as the fighters lower engines detached and swung forward to become a pair of legs as it slipped through an atmospheric retention barrier and into the docking port. They watched in helpless silence as the armour re-sealed it's self over the docking area.

"How… how long did that just take?" Jennings heard himself asking.

No one answered as suddenly the fifteen hundred meter long alien ship shot forward and parked itself directly inform of the Prometheus, no more than a hundred meters from touching the much smaller earth built starship, all the while matching their speed in reverse.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!" Demanded a highly irate Ronson as both he and major Carter came running onto the bridge.

After a few seconds of silence in which no one so much as breathed he asked again but slightly more calmly. "So, would somebody please care to enlighten me as to the reason that the 'alien' ship is sitting parked directly off the bow of my ship?" as he stormed towards his chair, leaving Carter and the rest of the bridge crew stunned, and all knowing exactly who Ronson's anger was directed at, even if they didn't know the exact reason for it this time. "Captain Jennings?"

Jennings pulled himself back up. He wasn't going to blow his cover as a member of the 'Trust' to this alien lover and allow him or that blond from SG1 to blame him for the actions of the unknown and dangerous behaviour. "Colonel, a group of unknown craft slightly larger than a SU-37, flew across the bow and docked with the alien vessel. They then moved directly into our flight path."

"And we did nothing to cause them to do such a thing?"

"No sir. The only thing which we were attempting was to conduct a deeper scan of their vessel."

Ronson settled into his chair while he pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to work out just how the XO had made it through the SGC psych screening and how he had managed to possibly incite another alien race into wanting to destroy the Earth.

"Colonel, we're getting a signal from the alien ship, audio only."

"Let's hear it."

"This is the Zentraedi Macross fleet battlefortress Archangel to the USAF Prometheus. Could you kindly tells us why your weapons array was powering up and actively targeting us a few moments ago?" Asked a very hostile, though non Goa'uld, sounding voice.

Ronson turned as he cursed at the stupidity of the man that the SGC had appointed his XO and his earth-first point of view while trying not to growl at the idiot as he spoke to man. "Captain Jennings, you have exactly thirty seconds to explain your actions before I have you relieved of duty and confined to the brig under escort by the ship security pending court martial."

This announcement made all of the members of the crew present take a small step back and away from both officers out of a sense of fear.

-{[]}-

_Combat log 56480.9_

_Admiral J. G. Cutter recording._

_This will be my final long before I officially transfer command of the Archangel to the freshly minted commodore Kira Hudson._

_I have been out of my coma for twelve of my allotted thirteen days and I can already feel that things are starting to slip away from me. Doctor Morse has informed me that within the next two to three hours I will have to return to medical so I wish to file one last log update in the highly unlikely case that the ship and crew are able to return home._

_While the commodore's choice of a new executive officer is strange, since I know that he was friends with his former executive officer colonel Wildhorse for a very long time, I do agree with it given the current situation that we have found are self in and the level of comfort which would appear to exist between him and sub-commander Dvorak._

_Dvorak and her fellow Blood Haze survivors seen to have settled into the day-to-day running of the ship, but I am sure that because of the uniqueness of the current situation and the amount of intelligence information, that should we make it home, they would be able to take back to imperial high command._

_The computer still has several sections of the ship sealed off due to damage from number of various problems relating to either the battle against the Prometheans or our dimensional jump. Fleet command has records of ships or crews, mostly relating to the any ship or the crew assigned to a ship called Macross, I swear that ship is either cursed or lucky or both, jumping to or detecting alternate universe however they are normally so close to ours that they seem to be correct, but this one is different._

_According to colonel Ronson of the USAF space vessel Prometheus, the local date is August 10th 2004 which means that not only have we travelled to another dimension but also to a time when the first series of generation one ARMD series space carriers are under-construction in low earth orbit. From the information that the Prometheus has sent over to us we have discovered that one, all of the pyramid type ships that our recon flights have sighted belong to one race called the Goa'uld and manned by a slave race called the Jaffa. These Goa'uld are a race of parasitic snakes who rule the galaxy through fear by posing as 'Gods'. Two that these Goa'uld are the definition of the phrase 'ego maniacs', who are currently fighting against one of their own, but from all accounts that's nothing new, but this one seems to have a clear technological advantage over the rest, and that three, to the galaxy at large the people of this realities earth are known as the Tau'ri or the first world due to the fact that it was from this realities Earth that these Goa'uld first took humans back during the time of the Egyptian pharaoh's._

_I have decided that it would be safest if we were to relocate to the sol system so that we can use it as a base of operations to repair the ship, although we still plan to build a base off-world so that some of the more technological and dangerous aspects of our systems and Robotechnology don't fall into the wrong hands, and to maintain the secrecy of the Prometheans command structure known as stargate command._

_Their resident scientist, one major Carter, seemed shocked that we have no concept of hyper-space, 'funny that the local form of FTL is really called that', but we have managed to convince her that our own fold system is actually faster than their FTL._

_Shockingly it would seem that ships using this hyper-space can travel at speeds of up to hyper three, and that one of their allies a race called the Asgard are able to travel at hyper nine point nine for extended periods of time which allows them to travel from their home galaxy of Ida to Earth within a day. I suspect that with our higher sub-light speeds, greater power generation systems and vastly improved scanners, which once we have developed our own hyper-drive reactor core that we will not only be able to travel at a much greater speed and be able to travel to other galaxies._

_I have on my personal command authority promoted commander Kira Hudson to the rank of commodore as mentioned earlier and granted him access to all of the files and data to which I was privy, I have also promoted both ensigns Meer Campbell and Zefram Cochrane to the rank of lieutenant junior grade and named Cochrane as head of the ships limited science staff had been off-loaded before the battle of Lantea._

_Cochrane has a plan in place to launch a series of modified class XVI probes to scan and map local FTL traffic when we arrive within the sol system, a sort of FTL early warning system if you will, and hopes that we can develop our own hyper-drive reactor so that we can move around the galaxy without the risk of running into these Goa'uld._

_Log update._

_The more I view the recording of Nemesis flights observation of this Goa'uld super mother ship, as major O'Neill has taken to calling it, the more it worries me. There is something about it that just screams 'Planet Killer', but I know that as an admiral in the Macross Fleet I should judge an alien by how their ships look, but this super mother ship worries me._

_The Prometheus has sent us, in a cultural and tactical data exchange, a list on all known types of Goa'uld craft used by the major and minor players of the Goa'uld but not one of the ships match it even remotely. I suspect that this Anubis is either using something that is very, very, very new or given the limited data we have on it in the form of quantum dating on the scans would suggest that it is old, very, very, very, very old._

_For the safety of the crew and the ship I have made the recommendation that all Goa'uld ships, bases and planets should be avoided for the time being. Better to play it safe than to allow these parasites to have access to Robotechnology._

_It has been an honour to serve as the commanding officer of the Archangel for the last five years, and serve on her for the last seven years. I know that commodore Hudson will look after the crew and protect them with his life, he just has to accept who is and his Varauta heritage, and to use his talents fully._

_I know that he will be a good ships commanding officer for the Archangel, but I don't know if he is fully ready for the responsibilities that come with commanding a battlefortress at the moment. He is only thirty-nine, and while not the most experienced officer left, he is the only senior officer left with bridge command experience so he is the best choice. Major Murdoch is unsuitable for command nor are any of the other senior or deputy officers who are left._

_I feel somehow that this universe seems poised to be on the precipice of something, but whether that is something good or not I can't say, but if the Archangel is to be stranded here for a long time, then I know that this unplanned multi-national crew will do what it is meant to do while following the basic tenants of the Macross Fleet and her allies to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and civilizations and to go boldly where no one has gone before._

_Deculture, I can't believe that I just said that, well it's on the record now._

_Anyhow, if Macross fleet command is able to read this log then let it be known that I personally and professionally support any actions that is made by command… correction commodore Kira Hudson will take and I know that he, the crew and the ship will uphold the guiding principles of the Macross Fleet and bring honour to this ship and her history._

_Admiral James Gregory Cutter signing off._


	6. Chapter 6: Ha'Tak's and Super Soldiers

**Chapter 06: Ha'tak's and Super Soldiers.**

_Combat Log date 56481.2_

_Commodore Kira Hudson recording._

_It is with a heavy heart that I must report the death of admiral James, G. Cutter. Admiral cutter passed away at 20:30hr last night due to a result of his injuries he sustained during the inter dimensional jump which has left the ship and her new multi-national crew stranded in this new universe, and has taken the total number of crew deaths since the 'Battle of Lantea' to two hundred and four._

_The bodies of all the deceased, or rather those that we have been able to locate, are currently being stored in one of the secondary cargo decks in torpedo casings while the new command staff, which includes sub-commander Dvorak of the Hansa Imperial Star empire and Executor Granger of the imperial Intelligence service, discuss appropriate funeral arrangements._

_Honestly however, I just don't know how the remaining crew is going to react when we have to deal with the numerous memorials in such a short amount of time or how we are going to do it, since every race has different rituals when it comes to death, so if we were to hold a simple general service it might not work._

_The suggestion of ensign Styles, our only surviving physiologist aboard, that we hold as many of the funerals as we can around the home-worlds of their race, and while that plan is the best one we have had to date, long-ranged ghost recon drone probes have already discovered that the Trojan home world has been destroyed by a massive solar flare which has burnt off the atmosphere in this dimension. As for the others the only world that we know that exist for certain is Earth herself, so that will be our first port of call for funerals._

_Currently however we are sitting in the Lantea system which is apparently at edge of one of these Goa'uld that calls itself lord Yu-Huang Shang Ti the jade emperor. This particular Goa'uld controls about 30% of the galaxy and is the least antagonistic towards the people of this Earth or Tau'ri as they are known._

_Personally I would like nothing better than to just go on the mother of all Macross attacks and wipe these Goa'uld from the face of existence if one more of the recon flights are threatened for not bowing down to these parasites, but I made a death bed promise to admiral Cutter that I would attempt to keep my protodeviln heritage and not stir up any trouble in case it sparks a full scale galactic war. However, if one more of these so called 'Gods!' are dumb enough to even attempt to seize any of my fighters or demand that are forces bow down and worship them, then I reserve the right to beam over to their ship and open fire with a Detonator weapons system and blast the hell out of their ship and introduce their commander to a god!_

_Where was I? Oh yes._

_We are currently sitting along sitting alongside the Prometheus while they conduct repairs to their FTL drive and major Murdoch's people finish repairing our own systems, which they have 'borrowed' to use colonel Ronson's phrase from a Goa'uld mid-range bomber about a tenth the size of the Prometheus._

_And yet, given that they are currently fighting this war against these Goa'uld in secret I can't but be surprised at the level of technology in use on the Prometheus, but if there are more people like the XO of the Prometheus then I might just have to show them what a 'rain of death' looks like, but first we need to arrive at earth._

_From what the command staff and I have discovered about this universe the general concessions is that it will be like dealing with a whole galaxy full of the Raul!_

_Anyway…_

"Bridge to Commodore Hudson."

Hudson sighed and paused the recording, which he admitted was probably a good thing. It was the first time he had tried to sit down and record a proper report. When he had been in command of the ESMF Drake before taking over as the gun-sight commander on the Archangel, he had simply used cliff notes approach for any official reports, but since he was now the Archangel's new commander, he was expected to not only keep the ships combat log updated, but also explain his actions and what had led to them happening, but he was finding that his emotions where getting the better of him when he did so, especially when things were starting to annoy him. He tapped the comm.-link which was built into the desk of the flag-suites desk. "Hudson here."

"Sir, we're getting some strange readings from the far side of the system." Reported Dvorak, who it seemed that admiral Cutter, being a sly old dog, in an attempt to promote a sense of greater unit co-hessian had listed officially as the ships XO. There was no apology for interrupting him, since it wasn't the imperial way, and Hudson had to admit that it was growing on him.

After the nearly undetectable arrival of the Prometheus into the system, Hudson had ordered the scanners to be switched from passive scan to active scan, and at the last staff meeting in which executor Granger had purposed that with a little bit of re-calibrations that they would be able to install version of the Hansa's hyper-track system and a cloaking system similar to that of a Conquer class battleship to which he had agreed.

They had been lucky that five of the survivors from the Blood Haze had been engineers, and one of them knew how to adapt both of the systems that the Macross Fleet had on record for use on the Archangel. However, they had held off with the installations following the death of admiral Cutter.

Hudson stood up and walked out of the flag-suite and onto the bridge. As he was about to ask Dvorak for some more information about the unusual readings they had detected alarms began ringing out all over the bridge as the ship was hit by weapons fire.

"Report!" Ordered Hudson.

"Sir, four contact's just appeared on scanners, Goa'uld Ha'tak class according to the updated war-book sir." Reported Welsh from the tactical station.

"Shields are down to ninety-eight percent." Informed Granger as another set of alarms began to ring and crew ran to their stations to initiate damage control and other key tasks.

"Murdoch, we've got four very hostile ships bearing down on our throats, what's the status of the Prometheus's fold system?"

"Sir their fold system is still recharging. They have transferred power to their shielding system." He reported over the comm.-link from the Prometheus.

"Deculture!" Hudson muttered under his breath, as he turned to face the helm, "Newman, full sub-light try to keep us between the Prometheus, even in our current condition we can take more of a beating than they can."

"Full sub-light aye sir." Newman confirmed as he and his co-pilot lieutenant Campbell began to move the Archangel so that she was taking more of the incoming weapons fire from the approaching Ha'tak's.

"Shields down to eighty-three percent." Welsh informed the bridge just as major O'Neill and a few of the bridge staff that had been on a break came running back onto the bridge and nearly falling as the ship received another series of hits from the attacking Ha'tak's.

"Any reason why we've only got the Ghost CAP playing with these Spawn of Khyron?" Asked O'Neill as she grabbed onto the side of the flight-ops station for balance.

"The flight decks took and EMP type hit at the start." Stated Granger from the damage control board, "Engineering is working on it."

"Sir reading multiple fighter type craft inbound to the Prometheus." Said Dvorak just as they received a hail from the attacking ships.

"I am your god Ares. Bow down before me." Said a human who had a strange double flange to it, not to mention the fact that his eyes glowed gold.

Glancing over at the comm.-station to open a channel so that he could respond to this idiotic fool attempting to try and make his crew bow down and worship him as if he was a god. "This is commodore Kira Hudson commanding officer of the Zentradi Macross Fleet vessel Archangel you have entered protected space. Stand down and prepare to be boarded, this is your only warning."

"You dare to threaten your GOD!" Said Ares as his eyes glowed again, just before he closed the channel and the rate of incoming fire increased.

"So be it, tactical commence targeting sequence for the main gun full power. I want that this fool's ship's removed from my sky."

"Aye sir." Said lieutenant Welsh as she began to activate the very seldom used main reflex cannon.

"Sir signal from the Prometheus, its colonel Ronson."

"On screen." Said Hudson as he took a seat in the command chair. "Colonel we are a little bit busy over here at the moment, how can we help?"

"We were just going to say that we stand ready to assist and thanks for the air support, you've got half my fighter pilots and major Carter practically drooling over them and how manoeuvrable they are."

Before Hudson could respond Welsh announced "Thirty seconds to main cannon firing, all ghost drones have broken contact and are clear of the fire lane. Enemy ships one, three and four are in the lane, ten seconds and contact two will be in the lane."

"Well that answers that." Says Ronson casually before switching back to command mode, "We'll stay where we are and provide cover fire."

"Understood colonel, but if I was you I'd just sit back and watch the fireworks."

-{[]}-

Outsider the Archangel the bow of the ship split as the beam polarizing system which covers the bow activates and massive amounts of energy used in the over-technology super-dimension energy cannon.

-{[]}-

Sitting in his throne like command chair on the Pel'tak Ares' watches as the bow of these Zentradi ship split in two, intrigued he made his way down to the forward view port. As he reached the view port his first prime Trelak interrupted his musings. "My Lord, there is an energy surge from the Zentradi ship."

"What kind…" Ares' never got to finish his sentence as the main cannon on the Archangel fired vaporising not only his Ha'tak and the three others but all of the death gliders which had been launched to attack both the Archangel and the Prometheus.

-{[]}-

Back on the Prometheus everyone on the bridge was in shock as they watched all four Ha'tak's and over three dozen death gliders simply cease to exist from a single shot from the Archangel. The silence lasted for a few seconds till one of the marines from SG4 who was acting a security guard muttered. "Oh, colonel O'Neill is soooo going to want one." Which caused everyone on the bridge to burst out laughing.

After several seconds in which everyone mentally pictured colonel O'Neill's reaction to the fire power of the Archangel, colonel Ronson asks, "Major Grant, major Carter, what was that?"

"Unknown sir." Says Grant as she pulls up the sensor logs.

"If I had to guess," Says Carter, "I'd say some sort of high powered plasma cannon, but looking at these sensor readings I'm not sure."

"Well it looks like we've made a friend."

-{[]}-

_Combat log date 56485.2_

_Commodore Kira Hudson recording._

_It's been three days since we were attacked by the forces of the Goa'uld who had taken on the mantle of the Greek god of War, and though we took some damage the worst of which was to ARMD 2's launching system for our air wing._

_Following the battle, in which I authorised the use of the ships main over-technology super dimensional energy cannon, we docked the Tau'ri battle-cruiser, although to call it that is very generous as even a Mk 1 Oberth class packed more of a punch, Prometheus and are currently taking it back to their homeport which through a twist of fate is Earth, and although we already knew that Earth existed in this dimension it was still a shock to learn that the birthplace of humanity is called the same as home._

_On that note lieutenant Cochrane has discovered that the only log we have relating to how we were transported across the dimensional barrier is a visual log, as all other recording systems cut off on average point two milliseconds prior to the impact of the drone, and they do not reactivate until ten seconds until after our arrival in this dimension. When he reported this I immediately ordered him to work with major Murdoch to carry out a level one diagnostic on the scanners, their memory modules and all of the related sub-systems, but so far his investigation has turned up nothing._

_I have held a preliminary meeting with this Stargate Command, or SGC as they call it, and have offered to assist them in upgrading and expanding their fleet into, well something that is actually worthy of the title by giving them the plans for some of the early Macross Fleet designs, namely first generation Drake class frigates, Nelson class battleship and Minerva battle-carrier class, in exchange for constructing a base on the dark side of Luna. While these class ships are three to four generations removed from the Archangel, they are easy enough to build with limited resources. The SGC's lead scientist, major Carter, expects that they can have the something to call a task force within six months._

_Personally I feel that this is a breach of the SD 001, since we are advancing the people of this planet, but since they have FTL technology already and knowledge of other races, or at least some of them do, it was felt by the command staff that we wouldn't be doing too much damage._

_Man why didn't I take that offer of leave that the admiral offered to me before the battle of Lantea._

-{[]}-

Hudson closed the log and sighed as he looked at the clock on his desk, 09:00 hrs and he was already on his fifth cup of raktajino of the day, he wondered how the devil the admirals of the fleet weren't always in medical with stomach ulcers, but he guessed that it was just part of the job now.

Standing up and stretching, he heard his spine pop in several places, making him realise just how long he had been sat cooped up in the flag suite reading reports of one form or another. Deciding that he needed to stretch his legs and see how the ship and crew where doing. Walking out onto the bridge the first thing he heard as the doors to the bridge opened was the room was filled with laughter, stepping on to the bridge he noticed that Newman was holding the bridge of his nose with a cloth. Curious he decided to ask, "Okay, what did I miss?" as he looked over at Dvorak who was standing next to the command chair trying to catch her breath.

"Newman… just… tried… to chat… up one… of the MACO's over the comm.-line not realising that it wasn't on private mode, that was at least until crew sergeant Sciuts came in from the rear hatch and hit him with a PADD from by the hatch before leaving and saying something about 'every dam posting'." Said Dvorak as she slowly caught her breath.

"Newman, tell me that you didn't say is that a map to your heart?" Asked Hudson, referring to the tattoos that the crew sergeant had, pinching his nose as he sat in the command chair.

"I neither confirm nor deny it sir." Said Newman as he gingerly touched his nose now that it had stopped bleeding, which was enough to get the bridge crew to start giggling again.

"Bad move," Said Hudson smirking as he remembered how flight lieutenant Blanc had asked that and ended up spending two full weeks in the tender care of medical, but before he could inform Newman on his possible fate captain Hill caught his attention.

"Sir we're receiving a text only message from the SGC."

"What's it say captain?" Asked Dvorak, instantly snapping back into command mode.

"They are requesting our help in analysing the armour of a warrior that was encountered off-world by an intelligence mission that SG1."

"Send a reply, message received and that we will be sending lieutenant Cochrane down shortly to assist with the analysis."

"Aye sir." Said Hill as she started to type the response back to the SGC.

"Well lieutenant, you heard the order grab whatever gear you think you will need from the science department and ensign McCloud and head down there, but try and keep Ace from hitting on every single woman on the base it's bad enough that colonel O'Neill and ensign Rockwell want to form a comedy double act dirtside."

"Aye sir." Said Cochrane as he attempted to not start laughing at ensign McCloud's disappointed face about how he was trying to be a Casanova for the ship.

-{[]}-

Several hours later and half a dozen security scans later, lieutenant Cochrane is standing next to major Carter and Selmak/ Jacob Carter as they all watch as the body of the warrior that Teal'c and master Bra'tac had encountered while they had been investigating some intel that they had gained about a summit of two minor Goa'uld.

"It looks like the suit is effecting the MRI scanner." Says Carter as the trio look at the MRI scanner results.

"As long as he is wearing that armour were not going to learn much more other than what we can see with the good old mark one eyeball." Injected Selmak/ Carter.

"I know, I don't understand it yet but even my own hand scanners can't get an accurate read on it, it's like somebody took the armour of a Promethean Knight and mixed it with the scanner blocking system of the Elvin collective's stealth armour and built it with a some of the element that is used in that stargate of yours." Says Cochrane as he uses his hand scanner on the warrior.

-{[]}-

"Begin recording." Said Cochrane as he tapped his communicator, "Combat date: 56486.9. Subject: Unknown warrior encountered by Master Bra'tac of the Jaffa rebellion and Teal'c of SG1. Present for this examination are major Carter of SG1, Lieutenant Cochrane, ZSMF Archangel science officer and Selmak/ Jacob Carter USAF general (retired). Of the Tok'ra." Glancing over at major Carter, who was in full surgical scrubs complete with full face mask, as she raised an eyebrow. "This way if something goes really, really wrong then they know who to blame."

"Funny." Said Selmak/ Carter as his daughter started to giggle.

"The subject is approximately 1 metre 98 centimetres in height," said Cochrane as he moved to allow Carter a better look at the figure, "and is wearing an armoured suit that according to scans taken of it appears to be a mix of Promethean Knight and incorporated the scanner blocking systems from Elvin Collective stealth armour, while constructing the system out of a mixture of elements including titanium alloy and the element used in the construction of the stargate called naquadah."

"His helmet appears to be made up of two pieces." Says Carter as she examines the helmet more closely so that she could see the seam where the two parts join. "Lieutenant could you pass me those forceps please." After a few seconds of trying to prise the helmet apart, they hear a slight hiss as the helmet breaks apart along the seam allowing them to remove it. "It looks as if he has been fused directly into this suit and has some sort of breathing filtration system."

-{[]}-

After three hours of examining the warrior in an isolation lab, Cochrane, Selmak/ Carter, master Bra'tac, SG1 and general Hammond are all gathered in the conference room that was located above the control room for the stargate while ensign McCloud silently had a staring contest with the two SF's stood by the stairs leading down from the conference room.

"It turns out that it's a Goa'uld, but quite frankly, this isn't half as disturbing as the appearance of the host." Says Carter as she looks at the room who are looking at the MRI scan that they had gotten of the host on the main screen in the conference room.

"That's a Meltron sized understatement, ma'am." Muttered Cochrane, causing McCloud to smirk at the age old Macross Fleet joke.

"How so?" Asks Hammond not understanding the joke.

"It has an unusual organ structure sir."

"Everything is out of proportion," States Selmak/ Carter with the same double flange that Ares had used, "physiologically the heart and lungs have had to be abnormally large in order to be able to supply enough blood and oxygen to all of the vital organs and its muscles. Basically it is as if someone attempted to create a genetically perfect athlete, with next to no care for the longevity of the host. Leaving it down to the healing powers of the symbiote to sustain the life of its host."

"An engineered host?" Asks doctor Daniel Jackson, his mind and the rest of SG1 instantly thinking about the experiments that had been done to their adopted niece Cassie and the rest of her people before they had been wiped out by Nirrti.

"Yes doctor, but it is an incredibly flawed clone since it was engineered without the use of any proto-culture within its cellular structure." States Cochrane as he typed some notes onto a PADD to show to doctor Morse and Joe when he returned to the ship.

"Correct lieutenant, and although I am unsure as to what this proto-culture os, even with the healing powers a Goa'uld symbiote it would only be a matter of time." Said Selmak/ Carter.

"We are still in the process of analysing the genetic data that the lieutenant gathered with his scanner, but from the evidence we have so far, there doesn't appear to have been any evidence of energy weapons trauma." Says Carter as if she hadn't been interrupted at all.

"What does that mean exactly major?" Asked Hammond, although the general already had a rough idea given that he was a closet Trekkie.

"The warriors armour appears to possess a highly advanced form of energy absorption technology, which if it works how both the lieutenant and I theorise it does, it wouldn't matter how many energy weapons or what type they are nothing short of capital ship scale energy weapons will be able to breach it."

"Lieutenant, sir, what about ensign Rockwell's 'Detonator' combat assault frame?" Asks McCloud, suddenly wondering if his own 'Sky Knight', 'Skybolt' or 'Space Interceptor' would as well.

"Negative ensign, they are just not powerful enough." Says Cochrane shaking his head having already considered the assault weapons packs that the ships special operations squad use.

"Are you suggesting that neither Teal'c nor Bra'tac didn't take this thing down?"

"Yes sir, apparently it would seem that the host was already on the verge of having a massive pulmonary failure long before they even encountered it."

"It had a heart attack?" Askes a clearly shocked Hammond, voicing the words that everyone in the room was thinking.

Slowly nodding Carter says, "I'm afraid so. Sorry Teal'c, I'm afraid that you didn't stop it, the pair of you just got lucky."

-{[]}-

Following the meeting breaking up, general Hammond went back into his office to the mountain of paper work that he had, Teal'c and Bra'tac to the gym to instruct some of the SG teams in the more basic moves of Jaffa combat while O'Neill and McCloud both headed for the mess hall muttering something about cake, as doctor Jackson and the three people that had already been examining the corps of the warrior return to the lab they had been working in.

"Its entire cellular structure appears to be less than sixteen days old, it is organic in nature but it was certainly grown in a lab." Say's Selmak/ Carter as he looks at the results on the computer.

"Well we've known for a while now that the Goa'uld have been attempting to prefect a host which is superior to that of a human." Says major Carter.

"Well from the reports I've heard in the last few days, I'd say that this thing is definitely as strong as a Zentradi without the use of a Flemenmik Nousjadel-Ger battle suit, but looking at it I'd say that it is far from being superior to that of you humans." Says Cochrane as he examines the results of the scans that he had sent back to the ship to get some input from doctor's Morse and Smith.

"Not to mention that traditionally the Goa'uld have always being somewhat… vain, when it comes to their appearance." Says Jackson after finishing his coffee from the briefing room.

"This was obviously intended to be a new form of foot soldier, maybe as a possible reaction to the recent uprising by the Jaffa, but what is the most interesting fact was that this, being was not alive when it was first grown, it was in fact given life once it had reached its fully grown and mature state."

"Sounds like Frankenstein's monster." Mutters both Cochrane and Jackson at the same time.

"Err dad, how do you know this?" Asks Carter.

"There are results of a very unique energy signature which was detected by the lieutenant's scans."

"Selmak?" Asks Jackson.

"Yes doctor, this signature is similar to that of the residual effects left behind by a sarcophagus." Said Selmak/ Carter as if he was reading a 1940's news report.

"Wait," They all asked at the same time, "could it even do that, give life to something that was in essence, never alive, to begin with?"

"No, a sarcophagus is designed to boost health, or heal someone who is terminally ill or has been mortally wounded. They are no were near powerful enough to be able to animate non-living cellular tissue."

"Theoretically what would be possible sir?" Asked Cochrane, the scientist in him coming to the front despite the fact that he was more of a weapons and armour systems expert.

"Thousands of years ago, a Goa'uld found a device which was originally created by the Ancients, he was able to determine that the primary purpose of the device was to heal, however, the device was so powerful that the effects on the host, be they human of Unas, proved to be divesting. However, after much experimentation, this Goa'uld was able to reverse engineer the technology so that he was able to construct the first sarcophagus." Selmak/ Carter informed them as if he was giving a history lesson.

"But if I had to guess, I'd say that this Goa'uld was unable to eliminate all of the negative side-effects of this device, right." Asked Jackson remembering how he had been addicted to the side effects years earlier.

"Correct, the Tok'ra have long sought this original device in the hope of using it to perfect the technology of the sarcophagus so that all could benefit from it. Now though I fear that this might be our only hope of defeating this new warrior."

"How so?" Asks Cochrane and Carter curiously at the same time, before it occurred to Cochrane. "With the original we could use it to develop a weapon which we could counter act the life generating properties of the device."

Quickly thinking over what had just been said about the devices history, Jackson asks. "Just out of curiosity who was the Goa'uld that first discovered the device?"

"He used the name Telchak." Says Selmak/ Carter with a quizzical look on his hosts face.

"Telchak," repeated Jackson as a possible lead comes to mind as he heads out of the isolation lab, "I think I might know where we might find some information on its location." Which gets the others to follow him.

A few moments later the group enter into Jackson's own lab which is in its usual cluttered state. "Nicholas Ballard, my erm, grandfather," says Jackson somewhat sheepishly, "one of his early obsessions was looking for the so called fountain of youth." He continues as he begins to look through the numerous books and journals on his selves. "He claimed that he had found out the location of the fountains power was a piece of alien technology which was used by the early Mayan tribes at some time around 900BC." Finding the old field journal which he was looking for half buried under a file with photos from SG6's recent mission to P9X-908, before turning back around to face the group that had gathered around his desk. "Nick traced the origins of the myth to Chaac, the Mayan god of rain."

"And you believe that this Chaac may have actually been Telchak?" Asks Selmak/ Carter.

"It's just a hunch."

"Maybe not so much of a leap." Says Carter leaning next to a pile of artefacts from one of the off world digs. "The primary function of the device was to heal the user."

"For the Ancients," Says Jackson, "for anyone else to see an effect it would have to be from a very low and limited exposure from a safe distance."

"Excuse me, but I have to ask who these Ancients are that you keep mentioning ma'am are?" Asks Cochrane, as he notices an artefact which looks like a proto-culture power cell.

"It's a long story," Says Carter, "but the short version of it is that they are the creators of the Stargate's and the first evolution of humans within the galaxy."

"Okay it sounds like they are the Praeambulus from back home."

"Pretty much Zee." Says Jackson, using the nickname that Cochrane had told everyone when he and McCloud had arrived and been introduced to everyone. "Anyhow, according to Nick's old field journal the device was hidden near a waterfall and a river. His field notes indicate that he believed that the temple was located somewhere in Central America. He, erm, spent decades of his life searching for it but he was ultimately unsuccessful. I've been going over his notes several time on and off for the last few weeks, and the majority of it is indecipherable."

"This is where I really wish I'd stayed awake back at the academy during xenoarcheology 101." Jokes Cochrane as he looks at some of the notes in the old field journal.

"This is written in a very old dialect of Goa'uld." Says Selmak/ Carter, as he takes the book off of Jackson and begins to read it while grabbing one of the pens and nearby notepads to start translating it.

-{[]}-

"So where is it?" Asks general Hammond as the small group, who had spent the last five hours examining every small reference, hint and myth that related to the fountain of youth and everything on Telchak/ Chaac, now sitting in his office.

"It's here." States Jackson excitedly, barely able to contain his excitement. "If the information which we translated with Selmak/ Carters and the lieutenant's help, then there is a good chance that the device is in southern Honduras."

"But how do you know that the device is still located there?"

"Well, erm, we can't be exactly certain, but erm…" started Jackson, clearly floundering now.

"We think that we have a lead on who created this super soldier sir." Says Carter, rescuing her team mate.

"This Telchak?"

"No sir."

"After Telchak created the first sarcophagus he and a rival Goa'uld went to war for possession of the original device, that rival was Anubis." Says Selmak/ Carter, once again in his teaching mode.

"This was long, long before he even tried to ascend with the help of Oma Desala." Injected Jackson as he scribbled some notes on a legal pad.

"Anubis defeated Telchak, but he was never able to locate the original device, it was believed by everyone from the System Lords and Ra to the Tok'ra and any number of minor Goa'uld under lords that it was hidden in one of the many temples that Telchak had." Continued Selmak/ Carter as if he hadn't been interrupted.

"You think that it is Anubis who is behind this?" Asks Hammond, suddenly wishing that he had retired before the stargate had reopened a little over seven years ago.

"Yes sir, it is but it is the most logical conclusion as he was aware of the technology, and if what Mr Selmak/ Carter says is correct and he was never able to locate the original device, it's my theory that he wouldn't require it." Says Cochrane before Jackson takes over.

"He would have gained access to the knowledge on how to create one when he was ascended and just built a new one in place of the original that he was never unable."

"But it's still just a guess though?"

All look at one another, confirming that they are all thinking of the same conclusion, and after a few seconds of having a silent conversation they all answered at the same time. "Yes."

"But it is a highly educated one based on all the research we've just done general." Says Jackson.

"The good news sir, is that the original Ancient device is most probably still here in Honduras." Says Carter before her SG1 teammate can go off on a rant about all the research he, lieutenant Cochrane and her dad had just done. "If we can locate it we could analyse how it works, once we know that then it might be possible to engineer some form of weapon for use in combating these warriors."

"Not to mention the possibility of being able to harness its healing properties." Says Jackson throwing in the civilian opportunities for the device.

"Very well then, doctor Jackson, Take doctor Lee see what you can find out."

"General sir, with your permission I'd like to contact the Archangel and see if I can continue assisting doctor Jackson in locating this device." Asks Cochrane.

"Its fine with me son, but only if commodore Hudson agrees to it."

"Yes sir." Responds Cochrane professionally.

"Dismissed." Says Hammond as the group leave his office to go their separate ways, with doctor Jackson heading off to the science wing of the base to find doctor Lee, the two Carters heading for the mess hall to grab a bite to eat while Cochrane headed down to the gate control room so that he could contact the Archangel which was in Luna orbit.

"Sergeant, could you please hail the Archangel please. I need to talk with commodore Hudson." Asked Cochrane as he walked over to sergeant Harriman who was in the control room, before noticing that the man was waiting to sit back down at his station where the general all-round fix-it man of the base, master sergeant Siler, is working.

"Yes sir." Says Harriman as he directs Cochrane over to a nearby computer that was currently un-used, "So Zee, what was with that meeting?"

"Long or short version?" Says Cochrane as Harriman begins to set up the link, "The gist of it is we may have a lead on the location of something to stop those Khyron spawn. I just need to get permission to go off base to help doctor Jackson track it down."

"Well if you don't get permission to leave the base, it's poker night at major Lorne's place if you fancy it?"

"I think…" Starts Cochrane as the face of commodore Hudson appears on screen. "Sir."

"Lieutenant Cochrane, having fun dirt-side?" Asks Hudson as he takes a sip of a raktajino.

"Yes sir, in fact that is the reason for this call. I'd like permission to accompany two scientist from the SGC to chase up on a lead to take out these warriors?" Asks Cochrane, before going over in brief about how they believed that they had been created. When he had finished he waited to hear what Hudson had to say.

"Ok lieutenant, just remember to keep an eye on kit, and have ensign McCloud remain at the SGC to be a liaison till you get back."

"Yes sir, thank-you." Said Cochrane and a moment later the connection was cut, and he was heading out of the control room after thanking Harriman on his way to the mess hall to get a bite to eat before heading off to find either doctor Jackson or doctor Lee.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Note: I know that I have changed the time line of the series a little as Teal'c and Bra'tac encountered the warrior after the Prometheus was stranded in the gas cloud in 'Grace', but I personally think that the series was a little slow with regards to the Anubis arc so I have changed the timeline around a little so in my version of the timeline, it picks up after sg1 locate Daniel Jackson during 'Fallen' and 'Home Coming' but instead of the time line being about 6 months and major Carter is injured in 'Grace' I have shortened it to about six weeks to allow the crew of the Archangel help the SGC build up something more along the lines of a task force for defending earth.<strong>_

_**Now don't worry I will still have SG1 racing around the galaxy to find out that they need to go back to Earth like in they did in 'Lost City', but it won't just be the Prometheus and a handful of F302's fighting against Anubis' fleet in earth orbit.**_


End file.
